


Bring Her Home

by SQ_RoundRobin



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Round Robin, Swan Queen Round Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7471710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SQ_RoundRobin/pseuds/SQ_RoundRobin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cora’s dead. Henry lives with the Charmings. Regina continues spiraling through grief and loss and hatred. Then Emma suddenly falls unconscious and Henry shows up at Regina's door because he needs her help to bring Emma back. Reluctantly, Regina embarks on a wild swan chase through Emma’s mind, a whirlwind of ‘roads‐less‐traveled’ and ‘what‐ifs’ and ‘might‐have‐beens’, in order to bring her home. </p><p>A post‐’The Miller’s Daughter’ AU written as a round robin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Amycarey

**Author's Note:**

> This is a round robin project undertaken about a year ago by a number of SWEN writers. Each chapter was written by one person, then passed to the next, and we've threaded together a really wonderful story for you all! 
> 
> Following the first chapter, we'll be posting this each Tuesday for the next fourteen weeks! If you followed a notification from an author you're subscribed to, please be aware that **you won't get chapter updates unless you subscribe to the fic as well**. Otherwise, you will only get an update if the chapter is written by an author you've subscribed to.
> 
> Thank you to all the wonderful writers who contributed to this project! We hope you enjoy!
> 
> And without any further ado, here's [amycarey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey)'s contribution!

 

Someone raps sharply at Regina’s front door, the sound persistent and echoing, bouncing off her brain and adding to her headache. She ignores it, pressing fingers to her temples, but it doesn’t stop, so she stands, shaking off dizziness, and stalks from study to hall.

“Back again, Snow?” she asks, flinging the door open.

But it’s not Snow. “Mom?” Henry stands on the doorstep, fist poised to knock again.

“Henry?” she asks. Her arms itch at her sides, desperate to reach out and pull her baby boy close to her, hold him tight and never let him go. They aren’t there yet though. He still doesn’t trust her. He had gone with Emma when Mother had died, leaving her to mourn alone—in a house much too large for her, lost in the torrents and raging waters of grief—and then in a mausoleum that only served to remind her of everything she had lost.

“You have to help,” he says, his voice high and quick and desperate. “Please.”

“What is it?” Only yesterday, he had tried to destroy magic, to blow up the well to stop her from cursing him to love her (and what a word ‘curse’ is in that instance, because it has become abundantly clear that anyone who loves her _is_ cursed). She had seen the anguish in his eyes, his horror at the woman who’d raised him and loved him and broken his heart.

Still, he was coming to her, for the first time ever since his head was had been filled with stories of the Evil Queen and Snow White, of the Savior and curses. She couldn’t help but feel satisfaction at this.

“It’s Emma,” Henry says and she feels her heart sink, and her head pounds with _“get away from my son”_ and “ _magic isn’t the problem, kid. It’s her”_ and salt sprinkled on wounds so fresh that they still weep blood. “She didn’t wake up this morning. She’s in a coma. No one knows what to do.”

She bites back a snide comment, a muscle in her jaw flexing. When she speaks, though, it is gently. “I’m hardly a doctor, Henry.”

He stands his ground. “Whale says there’s nothing wrong with her, that it’s some by-product of the incident at the well. Of magic.” ‘ _Your_ magic’ remains unspoken, but it’s there, dancing beneath the surface of his words.

“Ask Rumplestiltskin,” she says. “I’m sure he’d be more than happy to assist.” She can’t avoid the bitterness lacing her voice, the words acid on her tongue.

Henry shuffles, clenches his jaw. “I don’t trust him,” he says.

“And you trust me?”

For a moment, Henry looks like he might run. Then he steels himself, pushing back his shoulders, jutting out his strong chin. “More than _him_ ,” he says. It isn’t a lot but in that moment, it feels like everything.

“Let me get my purse.”

Henry flings himself forward before she can move, wrapping his arms around her waist like he used to when he was hurt or sad or had missed her while she was at work, and she feels the harsh, aching gulp of a sob threaten to force its way from her throat. She stiffens and he pushes away, tensing and twisting in that awkward pre-teen way. “Quickly,” he says.

When she returns with her coat and handbag and stockinged feet armored in high-heeled pumps, he is sitting in the passenger seat of her car, belted in and ready to go. “Did you walk here?” she asks and, at his nod, says, “They should be keeping a better eye on you.”

“It’s not their fault,” he says, kicking at the dashboard, and she barks out a laugh because she knows all too well the difficulties of keeping track of Henry when he wants to escape.

“Do they know I’m coming?” she asks. “I doubt your grandmother wants to see me.” _Any more than I want to see her._

“Grandma’s at the loft,” he says. She looks over at him and he’s frowning, hunched in the seat. The hood of his jacket obscures a good part of his face. “Grandpa says she’s sick but it’s not, like, vomiting sick, is it?”

Regina remembers Snow on her doorstep the previous afternoon, twisted and torn in her selfish grief, remembers that desperate need for Regina to end her suffering. “No,” she says, and turns into the hospital parking lot.

“Is it because she killed your mother?” he asks. She can feel his eyes on her and a shudder runs through her body. _“This would have been enough,”_ echoes in through her skull.

“We’re here,” she says, pulling into a park near the entrance and braking sharply. “Lead the way, Henry.”

The old Henry—her curious baby boy who had a million questions for every hour of the day ( _why is the sky blue? Why isn’t it funny to laugh at farts even when they make a really loud noise? Why do I not have a daddy like everyone else in school?)_ —would have questioned her further. However, this older, quieter child just looks at her for one long moment before leading her up the stairs and down a corridor of the hospital to Emma’s room. David sits in a chair at the bedside, twirling his cell phone in his hands, his body comically large in the small hospital chair. He looks up at the snick of the door opening.

“Henry!” he leaps up. “What’s _she_ doing here?” His hand goes, as ever, to his side, even though he doesn’t have a sword.

“Relax, Charming,” Regina says and she can’t help but sneer. “I’m here to help.”

“We don’t need your help,” he says. “Gold…”

“No,” Henry says and that mulish look is back on his face: jaw squared, lips firming, eyes narrowed with intent. “I want Mom to help.”

Regina can’t help but smile across at David, teeth bared. “Why don’t you get a cup of coffee, dear? I promise your darling daughter will remain unharmed.” She darts a glance at the hospital bed. “Well, no more harmed than she is presently.”

It takes some persuading on Henry’s part. Regina simply stands in wait, fingers tapping against her thigh, but he leaves, glowering at her. “If one hair on her head is hurt…”

“Yes,” Regina says, hand curling into a fist, magic crackling from her heart to the tips of her fingers. She counts to five, slows her breathing. “Please, do continue making threats at me in front of my son.”

Henry settles himself into David’s chair. Regina steps forward, the sound of her heels preternaturally loud against the linoleum, and looks down at Emma Swan, lying on the hospital bed and hooked up to machines. Her skin is pale—Emma has always been pale but not this sickly, almost translucent gray—and those golden princess curls that had always irritated Regina are lank and oily. Regina finds she is relieved to see the slight rise and fall of Emma’s chest beneath the thin fabric of the hospital gown, though her fingers clench and twist at the feeling. Emma Swan does not deserve her relief. There are enough people to mourn her loss, enough people to worry about their precious Savior.

But Henry…

She shakes her head, clearing it, and looks over at Henry, who nods his permission. Spreading her hand, she scans it across Emma’s body. She can feel the clash and fizz of magic against her palm. Whale is right about one thing; this is magic. But it’s not a magic she recognizes, not hers, or Gold’s, or even Mother’s. Her own magic is telling her one thing. This is not Emma, but a shell. Emma—her consciousness, what makes her who she is—is elsewhere.

“Well?” Henry asks, twisting his red and gray scarf between his fingers. “Can you save her?”

She sighs and drags a second chair around to position herself next to Henry, close enough that the arm of her chair touches his. She keeps her distance though, leaning back. “I don’t know. I need you to tell me everything you know.”

“She was fine when we got home,” Henry says. “Grumpy at me for running off. Then she complained about a headache at dinner. She took two Advil and went to bed really early.” His voice shakes. “When I tried to get her up because I was going to school and she was going to be late for work, she wouldn’t wake up.”

“And you were immediately certain that she wasn’t malingering?” At Henry’s puzzled look, she adds, “being lazy.”

“It wasn’t normal,” Henry says. “David came in. He couldn’t make her wake up either and he seemed really scared about it and called an ambulance. Her heartbeat was really slow and she was barely breathing by the time we got here.” He shakes and her heart stutters at the sound of Henry trying to contain his sobs.

“Henry, look at me,” she says. He turns and looks at her, complexion pallid, eyes wet. “We will bring Miss Swan back. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?” he asks, voice on the precipice of yelling. “You don’t even like her.”

“I know you have little reason to trust me,” she says, “but I would shift the moon for you, Henry.”

He giggles at that, the sound wet but gleeful. “That’s stupid,” he says. “Why would you want to do that?”

“There you go.” She shucks him under the chin. “Now, I need to consult with Gold.” She raises a hand as he opens his mouth to protest. “I’ve been a puppet in the affairs of the past days. I don’t know enough.”

“Fine,” he says.

“Stay here. Do not go anywhere, unless it’s with David.”

She waits until she sees him nod before whirling away in a cloud of purple, landing in Gold’s shop. It’s empty and she drifts her fingers through the crystal unicorns of a mobile, hearing the tinkle as they crash together echo in the dusty silence. “Ah, Your Majesty,” Gold says, leaning heavily on his cane as he appears from the back room. He is not yet fully recovered. There is a hoarse quality to his voice and a slump in his shoulders. He seems older. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Quite,” she says, curt. She’s already doing something that goes deeply against everything she feels. The last thing she needs is Gold attempting to draw out this whole business. “Please explain to me why the Savior is lying in a hospital bed, barely breathing.”

“Straight to the point,” he says, nodding. His lips curve into a smile, gold tooth glinting. “I’m afraid I had nothing to do it, dearie.”

She scowls, frustrated to see that this just amuses him, if the glint of gold tooth and twisted glint in his eye is any indication. “Don’t play with me,” she snaps. “Tell me what you know.”

“And what do I get in return for my information?” Gold asks.

“A modicum more trust from your grandson,” she says.

“Henry doesn’t trust me?” he asks and he seems surprised, almost hurt.

“He came to me first.” She can’t help but sound smug at this.

Gold rests his cane against the counter and stretches, grabbing a book from the shelf behind the counter and flicking it open. “You know magic is sentient,” he says. She nods, impatient. “Henry’s little threat yesterday may have had unintended consequences. The magic at the well felt threatened.”

“So it attacked?” she asks.

“Not precisely.” He scans a page with his finger and reads. “ _Raw magic will attach itself to a powerful source when it perceives a threat_.”

“And it chose Miss Swan. Why?” She can’t help but be genuinely curious; there’s no doubt that Emma’s magic is powerful, but it’s unpredictable and utterly useless unless she has someone to protect.

Gold smiles. “Miss Swan is untrained,” he says. “Unlike you. Your magic knows to protect itself.” He begins flicking through the book. “At any rate, as a defense mechanism, the magic will splinter off into various alternate realities.”

“Alternate realities?” Her headache, which had dissipated during her brief time with Henry, is back with a vengeance.

“ _Two roads diverged in a yellow wood_ ,” Gold says. “Robert Frost.”

“I know the poem,” she says. “Get to the point, Gold.”

“Emma’s consciousness has been split across a series of alternate universes, roads less taken, that sort of thing. I’ve seen it before, but never to someone with her degree of magical power. Normally people die as the magic pulls them to pieces.” He shrugs. “She’s strong.”

“Miss Swan cannot die,” Regina says.

Gold’s mouth quirks up at one corner and his hand falls onto the pages of the book. “Such fond feelings for the Savior?”

“Henry will never forgive me,” she says.

He stares incredulously at her for a moment, but then nods, as though understanding. She wonders if he does. She wonders what he would do for Baelfire if it came to this. “You could retrieve her,” he says and limps over to a shelf, finding a small bottle, glowing green, and shakes it at her. “Add a drop of her blood to the vial and this will allow you to track her.”

“I have to go inside Miss Swan’s consciousness?” she asks, aghast. She spends enough time forced into close quarters with Emma Swan. She doesn’t need to get even closer to her, though she imagines Emma’s consciousness is a very simple affair, too many thoughts about pastry and a whole section of her mind dedicated to How to Piss Off the Mother of the Son You Gave Up at Birth.

“Not precisely,” he says. “These universes are all realities of sorts. They’re not formed by Emma. You would need to jump between them, retrieving the missing pieces of Emma. Only if you think you can handle it, of course.”

She snatches the bottle from him. “Of course I can handle it,” she snaps.

“Remember, dearie,” he says, as she readies herself to return to the hospital. “All magic comes with a price.” She scowls at him and disappears.

David has returned to the room with Henry when she appears. He lets out a yelp at the purple smoke, leaping up. “Oh, relax,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Can you save her?” Henry asks, moving to stand beside the bed. He tucks his hand around Emma’s hand and it hurts her heart when Emma remains motionless, her hand limp.

She turns away for a moment, slinging her coat over the back of the empty chair, before holding the potion between thumb and forefinger, and eyeing it dubiously. “If Gold was telling the truth,” she says, “Emma is spread across a multitude of alternate universes. I only have to break her free from them.” She pulls a needle from the air, pricking Emma’s finger and squeezing so a drop of blood falls into the vial.

“Only,” David says, doubt in his voice. “Why would you do this for us?”

“I wouldn’t,” she says. “This is all for Henry.” One hand curves against the soft skin of his cheek, stroking his face with her thumb. “I love you, darling.”

Henry’s lips part, but he says nothing. His hand comes up and grabs Regina’s, and so it is with Henry’s hand clasped in her own that she knocks back the potion. The liquid burns fire and acid down her throat and she feels herself slip away, feels her body crash to the floor, hears Henry’s panicked screech.

Gold had implied she would be physically travelling, the bastard. _I’m sorry, Henry_ , she thinks, and then the blackness fades into a dimly-lit room that smells of horses and manure, and she’s being kissed quite thoroughly in the center of it.


	2. Coalitiongirl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [coalitiongirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl)! Trigger warning for some child abuse.

It’s like a scene from a dream, a long-lost memory that she’d never thought she’d touch again. The stables—her stables, she knows at once, a shelter from the storm that had been her mother. Her riding gloves are on and she can hear the nickering of horses and someone is kissing her, clumsy but enthusiastic in the kind of way that has Regina’s heart thumping and heat rising deep in her belly. She sighs against Daniel’s lips, home at last, and there’s a familiar, feminine laugh from...

_ Not Daniel. _

She tears away from Emma in a rush of outrage and confusion and remembers a moment too late.  _ Alternate realities. Two roads diverged in a yellow— _ Emma is here, in her  _ home _ , dressed in Daniel’s clothes and kissing her. Emma is—

No. Absolutely not.

“Haven’t you and your family taken enough from me?” she demands, stalking forward. 

There’s a flicker of alarm in Emma’s gaze, and then it fades into bemusement. “What?” 

Her heart is pounding in furious despair. “Daniel too?” She calls out to her magic but it’s like digging into a black pit, trapped in layers and layers of dormancy and immovable. Instead, she shoves Emma.

Emma like this is younger than she’d been when they’d first met—not more than twenty-five, at the most—but she’s  _ different _ , soft and confused and gazing at Regina with affection that twists her stomach. The resemblance to Henry is uncanny and infuriating. 

And then Emma’s eyes dilate as Regina backs her up against the stable door and  _ no _ , that’s exclusively an Emma Swan look. She grits her teeth, thinks of Emma—Emma who is “ _ I invited her”,  _ Emma who is “ _ get away from my son” _ , Emma who she loathes and sometimes hadn’t—and then there’s an urge, stronger than usual, that longs only to kiss her.

_ This universe's Regina _ , she understands. It’s all very instinctive, a nagging desire that she can ignore, and she’s unnerved enough by it to stumble away and run from the stables as swiftly as she can, her boots leaving furrows in wet ground and the moonlight lighting her path back to her family’s home. 

“Regina!” Emma calls after her, and Regina clenches her fists and shoves the doors open, running headlong into the sitting room.

And then she’s still, gripped with emotion at the sight before her. 

“Regina,” Mother says, turning.

This world is a nightmare, a perversion of everything she’d held dear. Daniel, callously replaced as though he  _ can  _ be replaced, as though Emma Swan could ever compare to him. The mother she’d just lost standing before her again, but “ _ you would have been enough”  _ is far from them. Mother looks calmly murderous, and every single part of Regina quails at the thin-lipped smile on her face.

“And here you said that you were reviewing your lessons in your room. Don’t tell me you were out in the stables with that  _ girl  _ again.” Mother’s lip curls. “I think it’s high time we found someone a bit less... _ distracting _ , isn’t it?” 

“Mother, no—“ she begins, and very suddenly, she’s yanked up into the air as though she has been tugged and she can feel invisible fingers constricting around her neck.

“I will not tolerate this insubordination,” Mother says tightly. “I expect so much more from you than frittering away your time with useless friends who will only hold you back.” 

It’s been days since she’d last seen Mother but so long since Mother had tried to restrain her that she’s surprised when her body still reacts in the same way, still shuts down and accepts it, and her eyes cloud up with tears only from the force of the squeezing at her neck. She’d thought she might’ve become more defensive over the years, less willing to take this from Mother, but instead she’s silent and there’s only desperate, intrusive thoughts she tries to smother like  _ why won’t she love me? _

_ She doesn’t have her heart,  _ she reminds herself.  _ With her heart she’s…she could have been…  _ She loathes Snow so deeply in that instant that she can feel magic stirring deep within her. She loathes Snow and loathes Emma and Gold and everyone she can without loathing Mother instead, and when Mother does release her, she walks upstairs obediently, utterly drained.

* * *

Her room is as she remembers it. She inspects her neck in the mirror and winces at the purpling marks. Mother won’t mar her face or leave anything lasting—not since she’d lost her temper with Regina as a child and left a scar on her lip—but bruises fade, and bruises can be hidden in a pinch by magic.

She stretches out on the bed and struggles to gather her thoughts. This isn’t her world, though it’s easy to forget that. She’s here only temporarily, only to retrieve Emma for Henry and return to his good graces. And the Emma here is only a mirage, only a piece of the other Emma who she can despise in peace. This Emma has no knowledge of stable boys and snatched-away children and this Emma is only an innocent who’s likely doomed to death the moment that Snow White rides into their lands.

She’ll have to protect Emma Swan, as distasteful as the idea is (and she thinks for a moment of  _ “she’s not dying”  _ and _ “let her go!”  _ and “ _ next time I’ll do the same thing”  _ and, dammit, this is no time to be sentimental). Mother can’t get her hands on Emma, not until Regina figures out what piece of Emma it is that she's lost here. 

Even if she has no idea where to start.

She rolls over and considers her options just as there’s a tapping on her window and the sound of a grunt of pain outside. Alarmed, she hurries to the window and pushes it open, grabbing hold of Emma’s hands before she even registers what she’s doing. “Miss—Emma! What the hell?”  _ Of all the reckless, idiotic things… _

She tugs hard and Emma manages a foothold on the wall of the house so she can scramble over the edge and tumble into the room. “Brought you…” she gestures to a little satchel on her belt. “I got it in the village last week.” 

_ It  _ is an herbal salve of some sort that eases the tenderness at Regina’s neck as Emma rubs it in. Regina leans back, head against the wall and her legs stretched out on her bed, and Emma crouches beside her with gentle hands and eyes that glow with fierceness. “I wish you’d told me that you had to go,” she says. “You didn’t have to run. I wouldn’t have kept you.”

_ Ah. _ So that’s what Emma had concluded about her flight. She manages a halfhearted smile. “I…didn’t think you’d take it well.” 

“Damn straight.” Emma’s teeth are grinding together now, her movements restrained with effort to keep her hands gentle. “I would have punched your mother in the face.”

Regina rolls her eyes, unimpressed by her bravado. Emma might have stolen Daniel’s space in this Regina’s life, but she has none of his soft understanding or composure. No, Emma remains a brute who thinks with her fists instead of her brain. “She’d kill you without a second thought.” 

“I’d get a second thought!” Emma protests. She pats her face. “For one thing, I’m obviously the best-looking servant you have.” 

Regina nearly laughs. Merlin help her, she might actually find this endearing. “I don’t know. Cook has that little pattern of warts on her chin that are rather comely.” 

“So it’s warts you like.” Emma tugs at her nose with a teasing half-scowl. Emma Swan has always had a self-effacing charisma about her, the kind that had only been pointed at Regina sparingly (like smiles outside Granny’s and a nervous birth mother whom she’d only seen as a threat), and now that Regina’s the sole recipient of it, she’s frighteningly aware of how effective it is. 

This Regina—the one she can still feel stirring at Emma’s smile—this Regina might truly be  _ happy _ with this Emma, even as every part of who Regina herself is rebels at the idea of it. There is no replacement for Daniel. Emma isn’t even an  _ effective  _ replacement for him. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gotten on Mother’s wrong side until now, knowing Emma Swan. “That’s why Mother keeps you around? For your looks?” She makes her voice light and less inquisitive, and Emma doesn’t pick up on the real curiosity there.

“Well, it’s definitely not for my riding skills.” Emma makes a face. “I was thrown by Rocinante this morning _again_. They’re all so much easier to deal with when my feet are on the ground.” 

“A stable girl who doesn’t ride.” Just the level of incompetence she’d expect from Emma Swan. “Tell me, why did you ever decide to go into this business?”

“You make it sound like it was a decision. I was on the streets and hungry and cold when you found me.” Emma is stroking her arm now, and Regina instinctively leans into her, tucking her head onto Emma’s shoulder in a way that has the other Regina deep down content. Just the other Regina. There’s no bleeding over to her own contentment, she’s sure of it. 

“I was shocked that your mother had let you come over to me that night. I’d been warned about Lady Cora.” Emma presses a kiss to Regina’s temple and Regina feels it like a terrifying warmth through her. “But it was pouring and you had a pretty smile and I don’t think I really thought much about the position you were offering me until I got to the stables and realized that I was a terrible horsewoman.” 

“Where were you before?” She asks it before she realizes that it’s a mistake, that she would certainly know vital details like that before now.

But Emma is shaking her head like they’ve had this discussion before. “It doesn’t matter, you know that. None of what came before matters.” It’d be romantic if Regina hadn’t seen the telling shiftiness in Emma’s eyes, the clear indication that Emma is hiding something.

And  _ now  _ they’re getting somewhere. 

“It matters to me,” Regina says carefully, but Emma just kisses her temple again and falls silent.

* * *

 

Emma falls asleep on Regina’s bed, curled up beside her, and Regina is afraid to move and jostle her. She drags her eyes along Emma’s torso, searching for clues— _ something _ —but all she finds are hands that are fine when they should be calloused and rough from hard work. 

Emma doesn’t talk in her sleep but she laughs a little at one point in a tiny exhalation and Regina is uncomfortable again. However, when she edges away, Emma’s arms slide around her waist and she tugs Regina closer, nuzzling at her hair. Regina freezes.

This is  _ not  _ what she’d signed up for. She closes her eyes and thinks of Henry, reminds herself that this is just about him and not the woman  _ cuddling  _ with her now. And yet somehow thoughts of Henry become thoughts of Emma, of the bright-eyed smiles of an Emma who loves her and of the tentative, awkward smiles over Jefferson’s hat of an Emma who doesn’t. There had been  _ something  _ there before Mother had sabotaged them and Emma had taken Henry, the stirrings of something good between them, and it’s so easy to long for it again now.

She may be trapped inside of Emma’s subconscious but it’s beginning to feel as though her own subconscious is trapped, too, immersed in a woman she’s barely tolerated at the best of times and dwelling only on the good. The last time she’d been this tightly wrapped against Emma, Emma had had a knife at her throat and had hurled Regina across a glass counter, and somehow she still feels safe right now.  _ Damn it all.  _

She lies stiffly in Emma’s arms until she’s drowsy enough that her eyes are closing and her hands are clasped over Emma’s, tracing a path up long fingers to her wrist.

* * *

 

The next morning, Emma is gone from her room, a bunch of wildflowers on the pillow where she’d been. She must have climbed down and then back up to Regina’s window just to obtain them and leave them there, and Regina scrapes the smile off her face and sighs at the idiocy instead.

The day is bright and warm, perfect for riding; but Daddy is home and she has no riding lesson scheduled, so instead she sits in front of the fireplace and sneaks glances at him, longing to… _ something _ . The house is a twisted echo of regrets and fears, love lost and stolen and thrust away, and Regina has experienced too much for any of this to feel like a haven anymore.

When Mother announces with cloying tones that she’s arranged for an extra riding lesson with Rocinante—with the understanding that this is an apology, of course, a gift from the woman who’d left phantom fingerprints on her neck—Regina tenses. 

The echoes are about to get worse. She knows  _ this  _ day, has had it burned into her memory with the same power as she might a car accident or the day Emma Swan had stumbled into her life and threatened her motherhood and her curse. Today… Today she’d gone to meet Daniel. Today she’d heard a scream and rushed off like the idealistic fool that she’d been, desperate to save a girl in need. Today she’d met Snow White and sealed her doom.

“Thank you, Mother,” she says, a smile plastered across her face, and she heads out of the room.

She wonders for a moment if she’d even meet Emma in the same place, if she would see Snow at all. But no, Mother had orchestrated all of this once before and Regina has no doubt that she would again. So she rides out to the top of the hill where she’d once buried Daniel, unsurprised to see Emma lounging against the tree.

She expects the kisses when they come and Emma gives her an odd look when she doesn’t reciprocate as much as stand still and accept them. Emma Swan’s kisses are still charged and eager and just a tiny bit intoxicating, and it’s only by reminding herself that this is  _ all wrong  _ that she can keep from kissing her back. “Are you okay?” Emma asks finally.

“I’m fine,” she murmurs. “It’s just…been a long day.” 

“Yeah.” Emma sneaks a glance at her and then heaves a sigh, sinking down to the ground.

Regina frowns. This glum version of Emma isn’t one she’s seen much of—not around  _ her _ , anyway, in any universe. Regina and Emma tend to bring out the very  _ most _ of each other, for better or for worse. “What’s wrong?” 

Emma shakes her head. “Nothing. I…Have you ever wanted to just…run away? Get far away from your mom and take Rocinante and go?” 

“My mother has magic,” Regina points out. Emma casts a dark glare in her direction, and she concedes, “But yes, it’s occurred to me from time to time.” She’s been dreaming of escaping her mother as recently as a week ago in Storybrooke, desperate to hold her close and flee her at the same time. “Who are you running from, Emma?” 

She touches her fingers to the top of Emma’s hair, awkward and uncertain, and Emma lifts her face to watch her as though she’s the sun. “It’s a long story.” 

“We have an hour until teatime.” 

“A lady never misses teatime,” Emma says mockingly. Regina quirks an eyebrow at her and she rolls her eyes. “Fine.” 

“Who are you running from?” Regina repeats, eyes narrowed and brain already working. How different is this world? Is there even a Snow, or is Snow Emma’s mother? Is it Emma who’s meant to be on that horse? Is she to be wed to  _ David _ ? 

Her musings are cut short by a scream that answers all of them at once. “Help!” Snow White, age ten, shouts as she rides past them, her horse spooked and running too fast. “Someone help me!”

“Snow?” Emma says, stumbling to her feet. Regina is frozen with indecision.

Before her is a future she knows and an opportunity she’s never dreamed of.  _ Freedom _ . It’s too late for her, but the Regina of this world can still be salvaged. This Regina can be  _ happy _ , even if it’s with Emma Swan, far from a life of loneliness and heartbreak and misery. Snow White would never have a chance to kill her mother or take her happiness from her ever again.

In this world, with Emma still present, maybe there’s still Henry without the pain that she’d endured to reach him. Maybe this Regina will never have darkness or magic touch her, and she can live a simple, joyful life with her stable girl. She can do this one deed, let this one girl she loathes be sacrificed, and—

And there’s Emma, climbing onto Rocinante. He snorts like he’s laughing at her and Regina says, alarmed, “Emma! What are you doing?” 

“Saving that girl!” She topples off Rocinante a moment later and climbs back up, looking determined and reckless and so very Emma Swan. 

Regina yanks her back before she knows what she’s doing. “Don’t be a fool, you’re a terrible rider,” she snaps, mounting Rocinante in one fluid motion, and Emma nods and gazes at Regina with such faith that she’s halfway to Snow before she thinks of sparing herself again.

But there isn’t a choice, is there? There had never been a choice. This Regina would never accept Regina’s choice to let a child die. This Regina is still  _ good _ , the kind of hero that Henry dreams of and hates her for never being, and this Regina with every fiber of her being has to save Snow or she’ll never recover from it.

She rides on, calls to Snow, and makes the rescue that seals her fate; and then she puts on her best smile when Snow is returned to her maid with hugs and kisses goodbye. When they’re done, she stumbles to the stables and sinks down against Rocinante’s stall, buries her face in her knees, and sobs. 

Emma comes in and sits beside her, looking white-faced and terrified. She doesn’t speak at all. But when she stretches out her hand, Regina takes it, and they hold onto each other with trembling, unceasing grasps.

* * *

 

She knows the story already, knows how the next afternoon will end and doesn’t fight it. It’s almost as though the fight has already drained from her with her resignation to save Snow yesterday, as though she knows all this is inevitable. The only step left to avoid this end is to keep from telling a secret, and she’s determined to do so. 

She’ll leave with Emma tonight. Snow White will come to the stables and they’ll be empty, Regina and Emma long gone. Regina still has her mission and then she’ll leave this body and this Regina in a safer, happier place. 

Leopold’s voice is oilier than she remembers, sticking to her in uncomfortable ways, and she has to breathe in her revulsion and make sure it doesn’t show on her face. “I’m so sorry,” she says when he speaks about Snow’s mother, her hands clasped together so tightly that she can feel her nails digging into her skin. She  _ hates  _ this, hates the past and this world, misses Storybrooke with all her might. She’d never wanted to return. 

“Since then, I have scoured the land looking for a wife.” Leopold’s eyes flicker to Mother and then back to Regina. "I’ve yet to find a woman with an interest in my daughter…”  _ No, no, no.  _ “Until now.” 

The first time, she’d felt trapped and confused that any of this had been happening, staring to Daddy for help and receiving none. This time, she’s stone-faced and tight-lipped and when he says, “Will you marry me, Regina?” she stares at him with the very coldest of her Evil Queen glares.

“Yes,” Mother says.

A voice from the pillar behind the king’s entourage gasps, “No!” 

Leopold stands swiftly, spinning around as though he’s expected it. “She  _ is  _ here! Emma!” 

“I sent for you only for this,” Mother says sweetly, ignoring Regina’s betrayed glance. “I never would have imagined this magical ending.” She’s smirking, confident as Leopold’s guards seize Emma. Emma claws at them, making a run for it, and another guard shoves her until she’s dropping to the floor.

“No!” Regina stumbles forward, reaching out again with magic that won’t emerge. “No, let  _ go  _ of her. Whatever she did—” 

“She is my niece,” Leopold says, his face grave and ever-so-kind. “She fled our castle on some misguided desire to find herself.” 

“I did not! Regina!” Emma’s struggling against the guards, kicking and elbowing and biting into thick gloves. “Stay away from Regina!” 

Regina starts forward again and is suddenly frozen in place, Mother reining her in at last. “Please—” 

“I’m sure we can arrange for her to keep you company at the castle,” Leopold says. “Snow loves her dearly as well.” 

Regina nods numbly, her mind already working again, and Emma casts one more look over her shoulder as the entourage leaves, her eyes desperate for both of them.

“Well, that’s done for now,” Mother says, clapping her hands together. “We must look into finding you the best seamstress for your wedding. You are to be a queen, after all.” 

“You knew,” Regina says slowly. The script has changed, but the same pieces are still in play. “You knew they were searching for Emma.”

“Of course I did. Did you think I would have hired a stable girl who can’t ride without having good reason for it?” Mother puts a hand on her shoulder and Regina flinches, still paralyzed. “Emma is an enemy of the kingdom. They’ve been searching for her for many months. It was just our good fortune that we found her first.” 

“Good fortune,” Regina repeats. 

Mother laughs. “Oh, Regina. You have so much ahead of you, I can hardly wait. I’m so proud of you.” It’s all cloying now and yet it still penetrates her heart, just enough to make her  _ wish.  _

But her wishes have never summoned fairies or magic, and she dazedly follows Mother upstairs instead.

* * *

 

She can’t lose Emma. Not when she has a mission, not when there’s another Regina who loves her, not when this Emma is kind and goodhearted and her smiles are Henry’s and her eyes flash with defiance toward the world. There’s something about this Emma that recalls her own teenagerhood, years spent with that same stubbornness and energy and innocent joy, and Regina won’t let Emma lose that.

And, well, she’d made a promise to Henry that she would find Emma and whatever that missing piece of her is in this universe. She’d do anything for Henry.

She slips out after dark and makes her way down the stairs to where she knows Mother keeps a secret dungeon below the house. It’s rarely used for more than a disobedient servant—and for Regina herself, once, when she’d crossed too many lines for Mother’s liking—but she knows that Mother would have insisted that Emma be interred there. Mother isn’t letting the king have any reason to leave before Regina is safely committed to him.

She squeezes her fists and leans back against the wall, listening to the guards muttering to each other. A brief prick with a needle in the back of each of their necks and they’re out, temporarily unconscious with a potion that Regina has known how to mix by memory since she’d first met Maleficent. 

And finally, she steps forward. “Emma?” 

Emma has been slumped over in the back of her cell, arms tied together and Mother’s best locks on the cell door, but she jolts when she hears her name. “Regina! What are you doing here? If they find you…” 

“Tell me the truth, Emma,” she coaxes, wrapping her hands around the bars of the cell. “Why are you running from the king?” 

Emma ducks her head, but when she raises it, there’s only honesty in her gaze. “There was a prophecy,” she says. “When I was born. My mother died in childbirth and I never knew my father, and I was brought to my aunt’s castle to be raised as her ward. And then there was a prophecy that I’d lead the king to his doom.” 

She shrugs, self-conscious. “So they locked me up in the highest tower and kept me there until the day I managed to escape. I wanted to run when I heard that King Leopold was in your lands but I thought…” She reddens. “I didn’t want to leave you yet. You can’t marry him, Regina. You  _ can’t _ .” 

“I won't,” Regina says, reaching out for her, and Emma manages to get to her feet and take Regina’s hand in her bound ones. “We’re going to get out of here, okay? We’ll take Rocinante and run. I’ll ride,” she says hastily, and Emma laughs, though she sounds tired.

“Okay,” she says. “But the lock…” 

It looks daunting, a series of locks all chained together. Regina would have barely blinked at them with magic, but without it, she’s stumped. She struggles again to find her magic, but if feels mired in quicksand, deep and heavy and untouchable. Magic hasn’t been this difficult to access since the curse had first broken and—

And only Emma had been able to jumpstart her magic. 

She remembers for a moment that terrible scene on her porch, Emma smug and righteous,  _ You can use magic _ . Somehow, together, they’d been able to bring out their collective magic at once. 

But this Emma has no magic. Doesn’t she? She isn’t the Savior and she isn’t the product of true love and there’s no reason for her to have any magic. Still, though, she’s  _ Emma _ , and maybe that makes all the difference. 

“I have an idea,” Regina says.

They stand with their hands millimeters apart around the center lock, Emma’s brow furrowed as Regina explains. “You need to focus. Draw the energy from within, pull deep, take a breath.” 

“I don’t feel anything,” Emma says, shaking her head. 

“Try again.” One of the guards stirs. They’re running out of time. Regina closes her eyes. “Think about what you want. Focus your anger and your fear and…” 

She touches her fingers to Emma’s. 

The locks all pop at once, magic thrumming through them and firing through Regina in a surge of power, Emma gasping at the sensations of her magic winding through Regina. Regina inhales, a slow smile spreading across her face as she opens her eyes.

And the Emma staring back at her is unmistakably hers.  _ Henry’s _ . Not hers. Emma’s magic had been the missing piece, then, and the true Emma has now emerged from the fantasy world. She feels an odd rush of loss with the victory, at the hard face of an enemy and not the girl who’d been in love. “Miss Swan,” she says, guarded.

Emma doesn’t look around in surprise, doesn’t seem confused by her surroundings. “Why are you doing this?” she demands, stiff and distrustful and as blunt as always. When Regina looks longer, she sees discomfort and uncertainty beneath it. 

Emma doesn’t like this, either, the two of them too close, too personal, all too soon. Regina shrugs, feeling the tension returning to her. “No need to thank me. I’m doing it for Henry.” 

Emma snorts, dubious. There’s a groan from one of the guards and they move without discussion, out of the cell and up the stairs and into the night. “You don’t think I would?” Regina asks once they’re finally in the stables. 

Emma purses her lips, hostile again. “I think I wouldn’t trust someone who just spent the past week planning the deaths of everyone I love.” 

“Yes, well,” Regina says, irritated. She unties Rocinante and begins to saddle him. “I wouldn’t have done any of that if you hadn’t  _ kidnapped  _ my son and taken him out of town to begin with!”

“You wanted him around  _ her _ ?” Emma says, jerking her thumb toward the house. “I saw everything,” she says, her eyes clouding up. “I was with you the whole time.” She flushes in the dark and Regina doesn’t know what it is that has her flushing, Mother or Regina or her own alter ego. Whatever it is, it has her drop the subject of Henry. “Look…” She reaches out to touch Regina’s shoulder. “Thanks, okay? You didn’t have to do this.” 

“I’m not doing it for you,” Regina emphasizes again, but Emma’s touch is burning into her skin and she’s uncomfortably aware of where they’d started out in these stables, Emma’s lips on hers and her heart pounding in time with their kisses. She turns from Rocinante and stares at blue-green eyes glowing in the moonlight.

And then Emma breathes out. “Oh. Oh, no. I’m—“ There’s a surge of blue energy near her heart, lighting up her chest, and she glows bright for a moment and then fades away as though she’d never been there.

“Miss Swan.” Regina blinks and Emma is back, but it’s the other Emma, and Regina steps forward and leaves behind another Regina. The other Regina and the other Emma nearly leap into each other’s arms, kissing passionately, and Regina takes another step away from them.

The stable walls push in, the wooden boards darkening and hardening into rock, and when she turns back to the younger Emma and Regina, there’s nothing in front of her but a collection of stalactites and a glow of fairy dust in what is unmistakably the Storybrooke mines. 

“Emma?” she calls, but her voice echoes, bouncing around and around and around until it returns empty to her.


	3. Violetscented

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [Violetscented](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetscented/pseuds/Violetscented)! Trigger warning for child neglect.

Still emotionally drained from the recent events, Regina clenches her hands into fists and calls Emma’s name again, this time with clear annoyance in her tone. _Annoyance._ That’s how she’s feeling.

She knows the infuriating woman must be in here somewhere. What she doesn’t know is why the raw magic trapping Emma’s consciousness in a myriad of worlds would have placed them down here.

“Emma,” she calls out again, louder this time.

A quiet voice finally replies. “Are you mad at me?”

Regina turns around to locate its source, and her heart misses a beat. A blonde little girl is sitting by one of the beams holding the mine shafts up, knees drawn up to her chest as if to protect herself. Regina squints, her eyes adjusting to the gloomy darkness, and sees bright eyes and a small dimple in the girl’s chin. There’s no doubt in her mind that this is Emma Swan; it’s just a younger—and hopefully less galling—version of her.  

Regina sighs. The girl stares up at her with frightened eyes, her arms tightening around her knees. And Regina feels that place in her heart designed for loving children begin to wrestle with the part that despises Emma—the Savior, architect of her destruction—for trying to take her son away.

Her confusion isn’t helped by the faintest echo of the other version of herself and Emma, the ones who found love with each other back in the Enchanted Forest. They lurk in her mind like ghosts set on her discomfort, recalling memories that were never real and shouldn’t matter at all.  

She shakes her head to rid herself of those thoughts and sighs again as she looks at the frightened girl. One way or another, she knows she has to help this version of Emma unlock this strange universe where Emma is a child and stuck in a place where Emma certainly couldn’t have been when she was actually a child.

At this age Emma must have been with foster parents or in a group home somewhere. Regina refuses to dwell on that either, unwilling to deal with the reminder of _why_ Emma had been…

 _No._ She shakes her head. No more thoughts on any of this.

The little girl— _Emma_ —has defiant eyes, but there’s a slight quiver in her voice as she says, “You’re sighing a lot. You _are_ angry at me, aren’t you? And how do you know my name?”

Regina crouches down and tries to keep her face neutral. She’s not sure exactly how she is supposed to behave towards this child version of Miss Swan, not yet.

“No, I’m not angry at you, Emma. To answer your second question I… ” Regina thinks quickly. “I know your foster parents. They sent me here to help you.”

Emma, whom Regina guesses is about six or seven, looks confused. “How are you going to help me?”

Regina almost snaps, _I don’t know, you tell me. What part of you am I supposed to help you find here?_ She has to physically stop herself and remind herself that this Emma is only a child, and just as lost in this world as she is. This is only a dream—a world within a world within a world for Emma, and Regina is on her own.

“I’ll tell you what, dear. Why don’t you inform me of what brings you down here and then we’ll see how I can help you?” Regina says in what she hopes comes out as a reassuring voice.

“I’m—I’m not sure.” Emma stammers and looks around. “I’ve been here for a long time, and whenever I try to leave, there is a monster who stops me.”

Regina quirks an eyebrow. “A monster?”

Emma nods emphatically. She looks just like any other child when she does, eyes brightening with determination to make someone _believe._ Something pricks at Regina's heart uncomfortably, and she takes a breath. She misses Henry, that’s all.

“Yeah, a monster! Not the same one all the time, though. It changes!”

“I see,” Regina replies and her mind starts to whirr. Henry had had nightmares about monsters all the time as a child. Perhaps she simply has to help Emma battle these creatures to escape these mines; then they can walk out of the mines and face whatever Emma’s unconscious mind throws at them next.

 _Hopefully a less sympathetic Emma than the adorable, frightened child in front of me now_ , she thinks ruefully before speaking.

“Well then, young Miss Swan. If you will let me, I can escort you out of here and back to where you belong.”

Emma looks unconvinced and Regina can see a hint of the tough young woman she knows now in that expression. “How can you do that? They’re _monsters_ ,“ Emma says with a frown.

Regina resists the idea of saying that she’s one, too, of magically giving herself fangs and horns to scare the skeptical frown off the girl’s face. It’s just like Emma Swan to doubt her even without knowing the first thing about her.

Instead, she takes a second to close her eyes and focus inwards. _Yes, there it is_. Her magic is at full strength in this universe. She opens her eyes and looks at Emma with a smug smile.

“They may be monsters, dear. But I have something they don’t. _Magic_. Would you like to see?”

The girl bites her lower lip and knits her brows as if she isn’t sure whether to be excited, afraid, or skeptical. Youthful exuberance wins and Emma breathes, “Yes, please!”

Regina can’t help but smile at the way Emma’s eyes are suddenly even more intensely trained on her. She holds out a perfectly manicured hand and creates a fireball within it.

Emma gives a gasp of excitement; but then that frown returns and she looks up at Regina. “Wait. Are you a monster too? Are you here to trick me?”

There’s a moment of irritation—of too many times meeting Emma Swan’s wary eyes—but then she feels that prick at her heart again. This isn’t her Emma. This child is looking at her with the knowing eyes of someone who has been deceived by adults before.

Regina extinguishes the fireball and brings her hand back down by her side. “No, I’m not. My name is Regina and I am here to help you, as I said.”

“Why would you help me?”

“Because I was asked to and because that is what you do when you find a lost girl. You…help her,” Regina replies tersely, tightening her fist.

Emma looks down at Regina’s closed hand as though she wants to ask more questions about the magic. But there is no time. Suddenly, she can hear roaring from further down to the mineshaft to their right.

“Here comes one of them now,” Emma whimpers and gets up to run.

Regina grabs her shoulders. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Running! It’s the only way I’ve been able to keep them from eating me. Or wearing me as a coat or whatever it is they want with me. Please, let me go. We have to run!”

Regina clenches her jaw and looks deep into those terrified eyes before saying, “No, we don’t. I will fight whatever is coming and then we’ll walk out of this clammy, unpleasant mine together. You just have to stay behind me, alright? I really don’t want you _scampering off_ somewhere.”

Emma stares in the direction of the roars as they increase in volume. She looks terrified and skeptical and Regina has a feeling that if she lets go of her shoulders, she’ll run no matter what Regina says. She changes tactic.

“All right, Emma. We’ll try this. Stand a few paces behind me. If you notice that I can’t fight the monster or that I refuse to do it and abandon you, you can still run away. Just give me a chance to prove that I can do this, just a smidgen of trust. Okay?”

The child looks from the direction of the sound to meet Regina’s eyes. “Okay,” she murmurs.

Regina gives her a curt nod and stands up, Emma rising and moving behind her. Regina flexes her fingers to limber them up and raises them to chest level, trying to decide if she is going to meet the monster with a fireball or a thrust of magic to knock it into the rock wall.

The source of the roaring comes bounding towards them and Regina can hear a fearful whimper behind her. Without turning, she hisses, “Remember, give me a chance to prove that I can defeat it before you run. Be a brave girl!”

The thing approaching turns out to be a lion. But it’s not any normal lion. Instead, it’s a huge beast with glowing eyes; it’s so immense that it almost brushes against the beams holding the mine shaft up.

As it closes in, its footsteps make the ground shake and Regina eyes it, noticing the huge claws dripping with sickly yellow ooze, and strange sores on its body covered in the ooze and what looks like dark blood. It has too many teeth; its mouth is crammed with so many razor sharp teeth that Regina is surprised that it can close its jaws without rendering its mouth a bloody mess.  She shudders.

She decides against both the fireball or shooting it back with magic. She doesn’t want the beast to cause a giant fire or to shake the foundations of the underground tunnels. Instead, she chooses another method, something that might earn her a few extra points with the girl behind her.

With a flick of her wrist, she shrinks the beast into a creature that fits in the palm of her hand. Then she strides over to it and picks it up by the scruff of its neck between two fingers, keeping it far away from her own body so that its venom-dripping claws and razor teeth can’t reach her.

She turns to show the now tiny monster-lion to Emma but—and she feels an alarming jolt in her stomach—Emma is gone, her limited faith in adults exhausted. She can hear the patter of footsteps in the distance and strides strides after her, trying to keep her voice friendly as she calls out Emma’s name.

When she catches up to her, Emma is standing in the middle of the passage with her hands clenched into fists and her thin chest heaving with quick breaths.

“Look,” Regina says and holds out the tiny beast so Emma can see it. Emma stares at it, uncomprehending for a moment, and then lets out a tiny giggle.

Regina tries to fight a smile at that relieved giggle but it breaks free, ghosting her lips. “Quite delightful now, isn’t it?” Regina says, and looks at the tiny creature trying to break free from the pincer grip of her fingers. It is as she looks at it closely for the first time that she is reminded of another little lion, one that grew alive from a fake tattoo and ran up a man’s neck to torture him into telling Regina what Mother had done.

The memory makes Regina’s heart ache and her stomach turn. She waves her free hand and the struggling beast disappears into nothing.  

“You did it! You won!” Emma squeals in glee.

Regina nods. “I did. Now, can we continue our attempt to get out of here? I believe this is the way.” She gestures back the way they had come.

“What about the monsters?”

“As I believe you witnessed, I can handle them. Just stay close to me.”

Emma rocks back and forth on her feet for a moment before walking towards Regina. Then, she looks up at her as if waiting for permission to continue. Regina begins walking and Emma follows suit. 

“Excellent choice, Miss Swan. Let’s get back out in the fresh air. I’m certain there are people missing you somewhere up there.”

Emma shrugs. “No, not really.”

Regina feels that painful prick in her heart once more and changes the subject. “Why exactly did that lion have those absurd sores and claws?” 

Emma looks anxious. “It was like that in a movie I saw.”

“A movie? What form of cartoon has puss-ridden, razor-toothed giant lions?” 

Silence for a moment. Then, Emma mumbles, “It… was a movie for grownups. They spoke some other language. It might have been Spanish. Or Chinese.” She shoves her hands in the pockets of her jeans, hunching forward.

Regina rolls her eyes. She is just about to scold the girl for watching a movie like that when she feels something deeply wrong. They are not alone. She moves her gaze from Emma to the mine shaft ahead of them and, yes, standing there are twin girls in powder blue dresses adorned with white ribbons.

Regina might not have recognized the lion, but she recognizes these girls from a movie re-run on TV. She remembers the title after a few seconds. _The Shining_. Why on earth would the magic that created this alternate universe populate it with creatures from movies Emma had seen?

This time Regina doesn’t hesitate. Unlike the lion, the two little girls aren’t big enough to cause a major fire and block their path. She tells Emma to close her eyes, and when she looks down to see that Emma is squeezing her eyes shut, she uses her right hand to throw a large fireball at the girls.

They don’t struggle or scream. They just stand there, burning and staring eerily at Regina. Emma still has her eyes closed but then she feels a small hand fumble at Regina’s side. She searches out Regina’s left hand; she clasps it lightly, tentatively, as if she is not sure if she is allowed or if she should show this amount of trust in the strange woman. 

Regina’s breathing hitches at the hesitant touch. Her maternal instinct kicks in and she grabs Emma’s hand firmly, giving it a squeeze as she murmurs, “It’s almost over, dear.”

Emma nods but she keeps her eyes squeezed shut.

Regina waits until the twins have burned to ashes, stroking her thumb over the back of Emma’s hand—and it’s so small, reminding her of Henry at that age—as she waits. When the twins are just a pile of ash on the path, something that doesn’t take long with Regina’s quickly burning magic fire, Regina lets Emma know she can open her eyes. She hears the exhale of breath that tells her Emma has followed her instructions.

Regina purses her lips as she stares down at the girl. “Might I ask why on earth you have seen a movie like that, young lady?” Emma scuffs her feet against the ground and looks down without answering. “ _Emma_?” Regina prompts the girl in a voice usually reserved for Henry.

“Sometimes I sneak out of bed and go into the living room and put the TV on. There’s usually re-runs on and I look for the scary movies.”

Regina realizes that she isn’t at all surprised that even as a child, Emma Swan caused trouble and broke rules. “Why? Surely cartoons would be more appropriate?” 

Emma little foot kicks up some more dust and Regina fights the urge to tell the girl to stop kicking mine dust everywhere. “Yeah. I guess. But if I watch scary movies someone might...you know.”

Regina puts two and two together and sighs. “Someone might wake up, find you and stop you.” 

Emma nods, and Regina thinks she can see a flush in her cheeks even in the dim light of the shaft. 

Looking at the now dead and charred twins, she mutters, “A foolproof plan.” 

“I don’t think they really care as long as I don’t wake them up. Sometimes I get nightmares after  I watch and when I woke up….I used to think they would, you know, care. But they just got angry.” 

At this, Regina feels her heart break. Her own mother thought comforting her would make her weak, but she has memories of her Father coming to her on the rare occasions she had nightmares, ordering warm, spiced milk from Cook, and holding her close until her sobs abated. She fights the impulse to draw Emma into her arms now, to stroke the long, slightly tangled blonde hair and promise the girl that everything is going to be all right. She stops herself just in time, reminding herself that this Emma doesn’t know her. Who knows how she might react? 

Then there is the fact that this is not actually a neglected child, but a figment of Emma’s Swan’s mind, surely based on her true self but a true self from decades ago. Try as she may, Regina can’t really help this little girl. She is beyond her help. 

“Let’s keep moving,” she says instead. They walk along in silence and Regina realises that Emma is still holding her hand. She considers pulling away but holding on to Emma’s hand is the best way of not losing her down here in the winding mines. Her grip tightens momentarily and Emma squeezes back.

A screeching and eerie laugh echoes ahead of them and Emma screams, grabbing hold of Regina’s hand so hard it hurts. Sighing, Regina peers down the path to see what the next monster might be. 

It’s a man in a black hat and striped jumper, but his face is burned and the hand he waves in front of him is clad in a glove with long blades at the tip of each finger. His smile menaces and he opens his mouth to speak.

Regina almost feels bored as she says, “save it,” and fires off a volley of magic that sends him careening into the wall.

Unconscious, he slides down the wall and, when he lands, Regina makes him disappear into nothing like she did with the tiny lion. All the magic use is exhausting and she hopes that she’ll have unlocked the key in this universe before she gets too fatigued and her magic backfires somehow. She looks down at Emma who is still clinging to her hand, and once again gulping deep, relieved breaths.

“What _exactly_ was that?” Regina asks, exasperated.

“It was a guy from a movie about nightmares. I think his name was Teddy. Or Freddy. Maybe Eddie?”

Regina’s eyebrows shoots up. “I see. I don’t remember ever seeing _him_. I do remember a ridiculous-looking man in black leather with scissors for hands but I think that movie came out a few years later so you wouldn’t have been able to see it yet.”

Emma scrunches up her nose as she looks up at Regina. “What?”

Regina shakes her head—the last thing she wants is to confuse the child with different timelines—and says, “never mind, dear. Let’s keep moving. We must be getting closer to the opening.”

They continue walking. Both silent. Both still holding hands. Regina realises that she has started stroking her thumb on the back of Emma’s hand again and stops herself with an irritated sigh.

Emma looks up at the sound of the sigh and starts to say something but it gets cut off by a man stepping out into their path.

Regina looks at him and sees a man in leather with scissors for hands. However, it is not the man she was thinking of. Instead it appears to just be a regular man dressed in a black leather jacket and leather trousers with actual children’s scissors complete with yellow plastic handles stuck to his fingers.

Regina can’t help but laugh at the misconstrued interpretation of her words but the man stares down at Emma and his eyes glow red; Emma screams and buries her face in Regina’s side.

So these monsters don’t just come from things Emma has seen! This creature came from Regina’s own careless words. Emma’s subconscious is creating these monsters, is placing frightening and dangerous things in her own path to see if any adults will save her, or even bother to see if she is all right. This is an Emma who has never been cared for, has never been helped when she screamed in the night, who has been constantly abandoned. What is the key here isn’t getting Emma to safety?

With a blast of magic, she gets rid of the ridiculous leather-clad man by turning him into a doll. What clatters to the ground where he once stood is a Ken doll, and two pairs of safety scissors. Emma looks at the doll, eyes still tearful, and gives laughs wetly.

Regina crouches down to face her and makes her voice as warm and comforting as she can when she speaks. “Do you see now? I will make the monsters disappear and I _will_ keep you safe. I’m not going to abandon you here and I’m not going to let you see any more of these terrifying things. Climb on my back, close your eyes, and I’ll carry you all the way out.” 

Emma looks at her with something that looks like hope in her eyes. Regina bristles at how protective she is being towards this little girl and once again tells herself that it is only so she can solve the puzzle. But, as she cups a hand under Emma’s dimpled chin, she knows deep down that it is a lie.

Emma smiles and Regina finds herself smiling back when the chin in Regina’s fingers changes and grows. Now, the real Emma crouches before her, looking embarrassed and confused.

Regina immediately lets go of her chin and mutters, “I suppose you witnessed all of that as well?” They stand.

Emma shoves her hands in her back pockets. “Yeah. Um, thanks.”

Regina wonders if she should ask if all that she had learned was true; she wants to know if little Emma really did sneak up to see horror movies in a failed attempt to nudge someone into caring for her and to test her foster parents to see if they would stay with her.

But that would imply she cares; that would imply she wants to understand adult Emma Swan better. And that’s ridiculous.

In the end, she decides to avoid asking and simply says, “Like I said, I’m doing this for Henry’s sake. Any… kindness I showed you in this world was merely me looking after a lonely child. I assume we are on to another world soon so let’s not dwell on this one too much.” 

Emma nods, still looking embarrassed and, Regina thinks, vulnerable. Then that same blueish light emanates from the centre of her chest and soon the real Emma is gone with a muttered expletive.

Where Emma stood is now her younger self again, but this time she looks straight through Regina, as if she isn’t there, and runs towards the exit of the mine. As Regina watches, the strong and seemingly carefree little girl skips out of the opening of the mine and away into the sunlight.

Regina can’t help but smile at the sight, until her vision blurs and the departing little girl disappears. Instead, all she can see are too familiar surroundings. The grey walls, hard stone floors and rich tapestries hanging from ceiling all remind her of her old castle, but some things aren’t quite the same. For one thing, she isn’t the Evil Queen striding through the cold halls. That is someone else entirely.


	4. Ellabell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [ellabell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ellabell/pseuds/ellabell).

**** Even though she can feel the power coming off the other woman, even though Regina  _ knows _ that each world she travels to is different and she shouldn't be surprised by anything, it takes everything inside her not to burst out laughing.

But this is no laughing matter.  Not with the way the gown falls around the other woman, the way that her eyes darken at the sight of Regina, the way that Regina can feel the magic crackling under the other's woman's skin—and that is the biggest shock of all for Regina, because in what world does  _ Snow _ have  _ magic? _

And further, what happened in this world to turn Snow into the evil queen?

She doesn't have much time before Snow reaches her and she struggles to push past her surprise and take inventory of her surroundings.  They are obviously in her castle, but Regina is not the queen and she feels anger bubbling inside for Snow taking  _ another _ thing from her.

Normally this type of anger would call up her magic sharp and quick to her fingertips and she welcomes the idea, but instead her magic settles lower, deeper, harder to call on, and yet...instead of being fearful that she doesn't have her magic for this encounter it feels safe—earthier and richer than she has ever felt it before.  Exploring it further will have to come later though—if Snow doesn't know of her magic yet then she isn't about to announce it.  And somehow...somehow she knows that accessing it in the castle will be difficult.  It feels...lacking.  Not that the magic isn't powerful, but if feels like a foreigner in a hostile land.  Wild.  Caged.

"Do you have a name?" Snow asks with a snarl when she stops a couple yards in front of Regina, her nose turning as if Regina is something truly unpleasant.

"Why am I here?"  The voice that rises from inside her must be a vestige from other Regina, and she digs deep to see if there is anything else she could pull on, if there are any hints as to what she needs to do in this world to save Emma—

And that's when she casts her eyes around wildly, because for the first time since this adventure began, she has arrived in this world without Emma already beside her.  At first she thinks that Emma must be hiding, but after a moment Regina admits that she has found herself truly alone in this world.

Snow's voice cuts into her thoughts. "You're a tortured one, aren't you? Is this because your parents abandoned you to the wolves?" she snarls, and there is a memory tugging at the base of Regina's skull, something that seems familiar that she can't quite place but she grasps for it, pulls at it, until it shakes loose.  She has been here before, except she was on the other side of the conversation and—

She finally looks down at herself and takes in her wardrobe, and it now makes sense.  Furs.  Soft leather.  Hair that is matted and dreaded and probably hasn't seen soap in quite some time.

She is the Huntsman, and when Regina herself summoned the Huntsman it was to deliver her Snow White.

"Those weren't my parents. The—the wolves are my family." Regina stumbles, hoping that the scene will continue to play out and that perhaps, just perhaps, this will lead her to Emma.

Snow looks skeptical and seems to jump over the rest of the conversation, the  _ play _ that Regina favoured so much at the time, and instead jumps to the point.  "I'd like you to kill someone for me.  If you do, you and your wolves shall live.  If you don't..."

Regina can vividly remember the warmth in her hand as she plunged it into Graham's chest, the bright red colour of his heart, the smell of his musk mixed with the outdoors and something wilder, something more animalistic... and even then, her initial offer to the Huntsman was far more generous than anything Snow is offering her, far kinder.  Regina had liked to draw people in with their own desires, making them give up on their own codes and morals before coercing them with force.

And perhaps this version of Snow does that as well, though Regina can't imagine her being as skilful as she was at the game. This Snow lacks some of the subtlety of which Regina had been so proud.

"Well?"

Regina gives a curt nod and Snow sneers at her in disgust, finally beckoning a man from the shadows to her side.  When he steps into the light, Regina has to hold back her surprise for the second time. David stares back at her with eyes she recognizes: dull and glassy, and with no will of their own.  She recognizes the way they look at Snow as the way Graham used to look at her, and it brings back memories, memories she would have rather stayed buried.  She knows how David normally looks at Snow, and this is mere shadow.  It doesn't compare, not even a little, and every past interaction she had with her own Huntsman suddenly feels cold and hollow when before she was at least able to pretend that he looked at her with kindness.

And yet, when Snow walks over to David and caresses his jaw with her hand, it does seem fond.  When she trails one of her fingers over his ear and neck, Regina can see that Snow  _ has _ seduced him, and that there is no show in the way he closes his eyes and leans into the touch.

Had Graham ever actually been seduced by her?  How long has it been since someone cared for her?  An echo of “ _ you would have been enough”  _ floats through her mind and the anger that she has been working on letting go of, of working through, flares up again hot and ready against the woman standing across from her, for taking away yet another thing in her life that could have been  _ good  _ and—

Snow's voice pulls her back to the present, to the mirror of one of her own most terrible deeds.  "David will give you the details on where to find her.  Oh, and—" she waves her hand and Regina feels like she has been scrubbed from head to toe.  "Can't have you smelling like you sleep with the wolves. Or, do you do that too?" she asks, the more sinister implications coming through in her tone.

Regina clenches her hands as if it will stop the non-existent fireballs from forming, but ignores the words.  They mean nothing to her anyway, right?  Instead, she bows, now noticing that the furs adorning her body are like new and the leather softened, and while her hair doesn't come close to resembling what she is used to, it now falls in small, neat coils and is mostly held back off her face by some sort of restraint. 

At least she still has her heart.

Whatever thanks Snow desires doesn't come, and Regina is caught instead in the memory of when she did the same for Graham, and then of their first night together.

It seems that Snow can no longer deign herself to be in Regina's presence, and she disappears down the hall with the same powerful stride with which she arrived.  "Your prey is beloved by all the kingdom," David grunts, focusing Regina's attention away from Snow.  "And the queen will want the... _ proof _ for her collection."

Regina nods.  This part she remembers, even as the memory stings inside her.  "I just need to know where she is, and I'll be on my way."

As David describes how to find her quarry, Regina becomes more and more certain that this is the path that will lead her to Emma, and any world where Snow wants Emma dead is not one she is willing to spend considerable amount of time in—and that thought silences her mind again.  Oh, how things have changed so much over such a short period of time!  It truly wasn't that long ago that she fantasized about ruining Emma, about ending her, about how that would make her life so much easier, and instead she is travelling through alternate dimensions in Emma's mind, trying to keep her out of harm's way.

Though with how successful  _ she _ had been at killing Snow White, she supposes Emma is probably safer now with Snow trying to kill her than she has ever been.

* * *

She is escorted out of the castle though she doesn't need the guards.  She had made that same journey many times before, when she had wanted to be seen leaving her castle.  When she hadn't, there had been teleporting and secret passages, and a few short glances while she is being escorted hint that the passages are still there, if they are needed.

Regina is starting to get the idea that they might be.  Even though her journey through these alternate universes still makes little sense to her, one theory is beginning to form; she was dropped into the castle instead of with Emma because she needs to know about Snow in this world.  She needs the context.

The guards push her beyond the castle walls and onto the footpath leaving it.  When she had met Graham, she remembers thinking that the man she summoned should have been so much more fierce and strong than the one who had appeared in front of her and she had wanted to keep her eye on him, but Regina isn't the soft man that Graham had been when he first set foot in her halls.  Yet, even then, Regina had only watched him until he made his way out of the palace gates before she turned her eye elsewhere.

Or maybe it was the Genie who turned her eye elsewhere?  She has to imagine that in this world, Snow has found some way to spy on the people of this realm, just as she did. Is it a mirror, as well?  Or perhaps did she find a way to corrupt all the birds of this world?  Would the Genie have fallen for Snow's beauty?  Would she have found him just as easy to manipulate?

It was so easy back then to justify everything.  She had been wronged.  She  _ deserved _ her power.  Her revenge was completely warranted.  And even though it brought her sorrow, if she was able to go back she would do it all again, because everything led her to Henry.

Except, it was the same thing that then tore Henry away.

She has gotten to the edge of the city before she even notices, and the second she passes out of the city's cobblestone streets and onto the grassy path that is to be her route, the thing that has been constraining her magic disappears.  For a moment she assumes that Snow must have put a sort of damper on the magic in the city (as she has done herself, at times), but as she stops and flexes it beneath her fingertips, she knows differently.  The same way she felt the magic as earthier and richer, the magic seems to pulse deeper, rooted lower than anything she has felt before.  Almost as if...

She looks down to the ground and it suddenly makes sense.  She is the Huntsman here; she is tied to nature, living in it, shunning civilization, and her magic has adjusted accordingly.  Now out of view of anyone watching (non-magically, that is), she summons a fireball and it burns hotter, more akin to the coals at the end of a fire than anything flashy and new.  Curious, she puts out the fireball and waves a force of her magic toward a tree, and is not at all surprised that the light purple that has been her signature for so long is now a deep green. 

She looks at the sun in the distance and judges that she still has a number of daylight hours ahead of her, and pulls for the one last spell that would make this easier, that would help more than any other…but of course that is the magic that is not coming easily.  Teleporting will have to wait for another world.

A few more hours of daylight, and if David's directions are right she will be arriving just after the sun sets.  Hopefully Emma is where he predicted, and even more hopefully, she won't be wary of her.

* * *

David's instructions aren't  _ quite _ as precise as Regina would have liked them, and instead of proceeding slowly towards the clearing in the woods, she stumbles into it after tripping on a root and finds an arrow whizzing past her.  The surprise of that alone has her stumbling again, and a bit of uneven ground has her on her back.

" _ You're _ the one they sent to kill me?" Emma could not have sounded more surprised if she tried, though to be fair, Regina muses that she probably doesn't look like the most capable killer at the moment.  Emma appears above her head (seemingly upside down) with an arrow notched and ready to fly.  "Seriously, you?"

Regina puts her arms open and to the side in the universal pose for surrender and smiles.   _ That _ sounds much more like the Emma she knew.  "Hi." She responds, and then grimaces at her words.  How…pedestrian, even though she can't deny the parallel.  "I'm the one they sent, though I have no interest in killing you."

Emma circles her and when she reaches Regina's feet, puts away the bow and pulls out a knife instead.  "I'm going to search you," she says, bending to check Regina's boots for weapons.  "And I  _ will _ stab you."

Regina wants nothing more to roll her eyes, scoff, and fall into the easy way they used to argue and banter, but even that recently has been taken away and she feels an unexpected twang of sorrow.  "I won't hurt you," she says instead, trying to keep her voice low.  "I have no interest in the queen's wishes or—" she stumbles on the next words, even though she needs to say them.  "—or plans of revenge."

Emma looks at her skeptically and continues checking Regina for weapons.  When she's finally satisfied, she takes a couple steps back and re-notches her arrow.  "Then why are you here?"

Regina had thought about this on the way to the clearing.  She hadn't known if Emma would know her in this world and had come up with several options to use when the time came.  "Because you dead is what Snow White wants, and I'm quite inclined to do the opposite of whatever she demands."

She can see that Emma is searching her for the lie, so she pushes herself to her feet and takes a single step closer.  "There are rumours you can tell when someone's lying," Regina tries, and Emma seems to be disappointed that Regina knows this about her.  "Tell me then, am I?  I'm not here to kill you.  I'm here to help."

Finally, Emma lowers the bow.  "How the hell can you help?"

Regina had thought about this too—how to gain Emma's trust—and this is one thing that she knows she is going to get correct.  "I have food," she answers and, when Emma smiles, she knows she definitely got this one right.

* * *

Regina has already made sure she could conjure food with her magic, so when Emma goes just beyond the treeline to find the bag that Regina said was there, she shoots her magic a couple of yards away from where Emma went.  In trying to get Emma's trust, she doesn't want to reveal her magic before she needs to—even though she is aware enough to know that it will probably end up backfiring.

Still, Emma finds the bag that has enough for large portions for four men and a couple bottles of wine, and they prepare food together.  It is only much after when Emma has finished two of those portions and a couple glasses of wine—and even Regina has to admit that her ability to eat is impressive—does the conversation come again.

"So," Emma says, lounging contently against a log, stretching out her full stomach.  "Why do you want to help me again?"

Regina takes a moment to sip her wine and compose her answer.  "'Because the queen dictated that I kill you' seems like a good enough answer to me, don't you agree?"

Emma shrugs.  "I don't even know who you are."

She hesitates, but her name doesn't mean anything here.  "I suppose you can call me the Huntsman, but my name is Regina."

"Regina." Emma nods.  "Well, Regina, why do you hate the queen so much?" and Regina starts.

In this world, why  _ does _ she hate Snow White?  In her world, the answer is easy.  Or at least, the answer  _ had _ been easy.  For telling a secret; for ruining her life.  And now, for being manipulated by Rumplestiltskin and killing her mother, even though…and is the feeling still hate?  Or did that hatred turn into pity and disgust?

But  _ here _ she would hate the queen for threatening the wolves, though Emma would see through it if she answers with that.  Regina doesn't really care for the wolves, but there in that lie is her truth.  "She threatened my family," Regina finally replies, taking another sip of wine and letting the fact that she just called  _ Emma _ her family settle.

And Emma doesn't call it a lie.

"And she made me a promise, once, that she didn't keep," Regina continues, not even knowing why she feels like she needs to cover up that last statement, why if she keeps talking, it makes it feel a little less heavy.  Emma looks sad, though, and so Regina turns the conversation back to her.  "And why does the queen want you dead?"

Emma gulps her remaining wine and stares into the distance.  "I made a promise, once, that I didn't keep."

They both stay silent for what feels like eternity as Regina processes the remark, until Emma speaks again.  "Did you really mean that you want to help me?"

Regina nods.

"I'm going to leave," Emma finally replies.  "Get away from here.  Leave the kingdom all together.  Be…safe."  She says the word as if she has no idea what it means.  "But I have some things in the castle that I need before I can go.  Some money saved, but some personal items too.  And then I'm gone.  Can you help?"

Breaking into the castle when Snow has magic and Regina's isn't quick to react?  It's dangerous and she almost wants to laugh, but Henry's face floats in her mind.  Whatever it is that  _ her _ Emma needs to wake up from her slumber, this is next puzzle piece, she is sure.  Slowly, slowly, she nods.  "Tomorrow," she finally murmurs.  "We'll go tomorrow."

* * *

They sleep in the lean-to that Emma has previously made.  Regina is forced to lie in the corner and Emma is by the entrance with noisy leaves piled in-between.  "If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it eight times already," Regina tries to reason, but Emma just tells her to get back into the corner and sleep as they have a big day ahead of them.

The sun is barely up when they pick up the remaining food and are on their way, each carrying a small bag of Emma's possessions.  Regina doesn't have anything herself, and Emma believes that at the end of this she will be progressing on her journey.  Or, maybe she actually will be.  Maybe once Regina makes contact with  _ her _ Emma and they leave this world, this Emma  _ will  _ continue and be free.  Regina doesn't know where the limits of reality and magic are in this journey, but she can't dwell on these details.  Not when she has a castle to infiltrate.

"There are a couple of hidden passageways into the castle," Regina explains when the silence becomes too much.  "From there we'll have to go into some public areas, but we should be able to make most of our journey behind the walls, providing your things are where you say they are."

Emma nods.  "They will be.  You're not the only one who has secrets about that castle."

Regina hums noncommittally and they continue walking down the path before the silence again began to itch.  She has never had this problem before, why is it that she can't handle it now? When she finally opens her mouth, it practically bursts out of her.  "Why does Snow want you dead?  Who are you to her?"

Emma barks a laugh before startling.  "Wait, you're serious?"

Regina again chooses her words carefully.  "I'm not well acquainted with the politics and current events of this kingdom."

Again, it seems like Emma tries to suss out the lie but finally accepts her answer.  "I'm the queen's best friend," she says with a shrug, and Regina stops in her path.  That's not what she expected.

It takes a moment for Emma to realize that Regina isn't beside her anymore and when she turns around, she cracks a wry smile.  "Weren't expecting that?"

"Apparently, appearances can be deceiving."

Emma gives Regina a long slow look from top to bottom and then back again, and the gaze makes Regina bristle.  "What, is my appearance not honest enough for you?"

"Truthfully, no.  You look like you were raised in the wild, but you speak like you were educated by nobility."

"Yes, well, you are hiding from the queen who wants to kill you, while calling herself the queen's best friend.  You tell me who's inconsistent."

Emma turns to walk again and Regina follows, thinking the conversation is over, but Emma begins to speak again.  "Snow's mother died when she was eight and she was lonely. Her father thought having a friend in the castle would help.  I was from the village where the summer castle is.  We had to work hard but I had a good childhood." She shrugs.  "Then there was a drought and everyone was hungry, and I don't know all the details but the King basically got my parents to trade me to him so the entire village could eat.  Intellectually I know why they did it but—"

"But you still can't help but wonder why they abandoned you," Regina finishes.   _ There's _ the Emma she was just starting to get to know, rife with issues of being left behind.

"I tried to make the best of it, though.  I mean, I got to live in a castle and be friends with a princess and loved by the town…and my life was really good!  I got to go to school and go riding but – but I was still a captive.  Bought and paid for. And she was overbearing and controlling and always made me feel like she was better than me and judging me—"

She cuts herself off and Regina gently pries. "And?"

"And I get why I was there. But she never gave me a chance to really be that person for her.  I just wanted—"

"You wanted a family."

Emma shrugs again.  "So when she fell in love with Prince James I thought I could be that friend, that person that she trusted and I would actually belong in the castle as something more than a plaything.  I promised her that I'd help her out of the castle to see him privately, and then maybe she'd find some value in me but—"

Most of the questions she has from this world fall into place: why David is Snow's slave, why she has no love for him, why Snow demanded Emma's life, and they all parallel Regina's own world far more than she will ever like to admit.  "And James paid the price."

Emma nods, her anger dissipating.  "And then I think I realized that she never had any love for me, even though I had to give up everything for her.  She changed, I guess, and others started to see the Snow that I always have, the one that would do terrible things in the name of good and who doesn't really care for anyone else.  She blames me for everything that has gone wrong in her life, now."

Regina stays silent and tries to process this new information.  The parallels are startling and Regina even feels a coil of anger again, starting to burn up from inside because isn't this Emma just as bad as the Snow from her own world?  Shouldn't Snow be allowed to angry at Emma, for being the thing that caused her so much pain?

Apparently she is silent for too long.  "What?" Emma continues, stopping in front of Regina.  "You think it is my fault?  That I deserve to die?"

"Emma,  _ no, _ " Regina answers, grabbing Emma's arms and bracing herself because even though Regina still feels that her hatred of Snow was justified, this is  _ Emma. _  "I'm not going to deny that you played a part in his death," she says forcefully, emotion bleeding into her words. "But you weren't the only one who is to be blamed for Daniel's death, and you certainly don't deserve to die for it."

"James.  James's death."

"I—"  Regina stumbles backward.  She didn't mean that, not what she said, not what it meant about Snow in her world, not—

"Regina," Emma says slowly, like she is approaching a spooked animal.  "Who is Daniel?"

There is a suspicious lump in her throat and a pulsing in her blood and she is sure that a fireball is about to erupt, but instead she just focuses on the woman in front of her.  "James," she finally bites out.  "I meant James."  Emma nods but is unconvinced, and Regina casts her eyes about for a change of subject and realizes where they are.  She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, determined to only focus on the task at hand: getting into the castle.  "We're near the city gates.  Follow me, I know where to go."

If Emma wants to ask again, she seems to realize now is not the time, and follows Regina without protest.

* * *

The path to the back of the castle is overgrown and to Regina, that feels promising. The wild bushes and large trees give her magic a bit of a boost as well, even though she is still hesitant to use it.  Yet, even through the weeds she finds the trap door and leads Emma inside, not even needing a torch.  Just enough light is able to find its way through the wooden slates and overgrowth above them to light the way, and Regina knows it anyway.

"How do you even know about this?" Emma finally asks when she speaks again, wonder in her voice.  "I know some of the passageways but I never found this one, and I used to live here."

Finally, a smile finds its way back to Regina's lips.  "I have my ways."

The tunnel declines and goes beneath the dungeons and they take off their boots to go through the low areas, but eventually they reach the end of the tunnel and the low break in the wall.  "Remember the plan?" Regina asks.

"This lets us out in the cold room for the castle's winter stores.  Down the hallway and to the left there will be a statue of a unicorn, and behind that a pillar covered with a tapestry and,  _ yes,  _ I remember the directions."  She rolls her eyes and practically stomps her foot and for some reason, the childish display does not grate on Regina's nerves. 

"Good," is all she says in return, and when Emma make the motion for  _ go _ , they both make it to their next destination.

It goes easily after that.  If ever there are people in the hallways they need to cross, they only have to wait minutes before they are empty again.  All the passages are clear and unguarded, and they're making good time, which should be cause for concern but instead Regina feels a sort of joy she only knows when a plan works out, when success is imminent—and that is a feeling she has missed for far too long.

She should have known it is far too good to be true.

Because when they finally enter the room where Emma's possessions are hidden, Regina notices two things.  First, that the possessions aren't hidden, and the chest that Emma described is sitting in plain view on a dresser, and second, that there's a large mirror across the room, where there never has been one in Regina's history.

And when  _ Archie's _ voice, of all people, starts speaking from the mirror, she knows that they've been had.

 


	5. Kyravalon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [kyravalon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kyravalon/pseuds/kyravalon).

**** “Emma, it  _ has _ been a long time. I hope life in the woods has treated you well.”

 

His voice sounds so polite and considerate, so much like the Archie Regina has learned to respect and even appreciate in Storybrooke, that for a moment she feels tempted to give in to relief. A brief look at Emma and she knows better than to dare to hope. Her eyes are wide open and her face contorts in horror.

 

Had they been led to this very moment since the beginning? Since Snow White sent her into the hunt? That would certainly be something she herself would have come up with back in her time as the Evil Queen.

 

Regina’s eyes sweep the room, searching for the person that wears that title here, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, if she manages to get whatever it is that Emma needs from this world before the Queen makes an appearance… But what would that be?

 

“How—” She hears Emma’s words die in a strangled whimper and marvels at the exquisite fragility that lies behind the brave, tough appearance, at how damaged every version of Emma seems to be. How  _ aching _ .

 

Trapped in the mirror, the smoky spectre of Archie’s head shakes slowly, his eyes shining with what appears as an infinite sadness. “She always sees you,” he says.

 

Regina hears Emma muffling another sob, and she moves closer to the heavily engraved dresser where the chest containing Emma’s belongings lies. She maneuvers the silver lock, a crowned swan, and opens it. Covering everything in the chest, she sees a soft woolen blanket with Emma’s name embroidered on it and she freezes, taking in a deep breath.

 

This could be —

 

But from behind her, Archie’s voice rises again. “Farewell, Lady Swan. May you both find peace at last.” 

 

Before turning back to face the mirror, Regina grabs the blanket and hooks it under her belt. She turns towards the glass in time to catch a glimpse of Archie’s silver head dissolving into a foggy swirl, which dissipates shortly after to let them see a dimly lit chamber, floor and walls made of porous stone and, in the furthest corner, a throne, heavily ornamented. 

 

Sitting on the throne, is Snow, her pale skin glowing from the shadows. She leans her right temple on a white hand, dark hair cascading down her side; posing languidly, she looks towards them through semi-closed eyelids ( _ through the glass _ ), her other hand softly caressing the hem of her low neckline. 

 

Regina places herself in front of the mirror, Emma at her back. 

 

“Snow.” From behind her, the name is pronounced soft like a sigh, grave like thunder. 

 

Snow White’s eyes seem to pass through her and land on Emma.  “Emma.” Her voice is hoarse, but strangely melodic despite that. “My dear, dear friend.” She punctuates each of these words with a scratch at the white flesh above her neckline. Enraged crimson marks appear on her cleavage. “I have been waiting for this moment for so long.” She sounds exhausted. She sounds relieved. She sounds mournful. She sounds glad. 

 

Emma says nothing. She stands with her hands leaning against the wall at her back, as if trying to push backwards through it—or maybe just to hold herself together. 

 

“You will now pay for your crimes, as is due.” Snow abandons her languid demeanor to adopt an upright, regal pose.  “Bandit Emma Swan, I hereby sentence you to die.” Snow eyes Regina for the first time since her figure appeared at the other side of the mirror. “Execute her now. Cut open her chest, take out her heart, and bring it to me. You shall be free to go then.” 

 

Regina stands still, wary of the trick Snow might be playing. She expects Emma to fight her or to attempt to run away upon hearing the Queen’s command, but all the occupants of the room—the actual two and the virtual one—remain unmoving. 

 

“I am innocent.” Emma mutters, her words barely audible. 

 

“Excuse me, dear?” Snow White tilts her head, attempting mockery. “Innocent, you say? Yes, you’ve always seen yourself that way, haven’t you?” 

 

“I’m not a criminal. I never stole a thing.” There is defiance in Emma’s tone, and Regina finds herself mentally encouraging the woman to shift out of her blatant surrender. “I don’t deserve this.” 

 

“Oh, I know…” The pang in Regina’s chest at listening to the Queen’s words is sudden and chilling. “But you are not innocent. You  _ do _ deserve this.” Snow’s fingers dig forcefully into the armrests of the throne. 

 

“I never meant to hurt you!” Emma says, her voice a wet, high-pitched cry. 

 

And then Snow stands up and walks forward, her dark hair and heavy robes floating behind her like a comet’s tail. She stands in front of the mirror, so close it almost seems as if she’s making her way through the glass.

 

“You see, dear, it doesn’t really matter what your intentions were. You are so self-absorbed that you never stop to think about the consequences, not if there is someone else to pay for your desires.” The red marks on her pale chest shine violently and her eyes sparkle in feverish rage. 

 

Regina feels her limbs go numb. She’s irrelevant to the drama unravelling in this room. Nobody acknowledges her, nobody sees her. And, at the same time, she’s the center of it all, protecting Emma from the figure framed in the mirror.

 

“I’m sorry, all right? You  _ know _ how sorry I am!” The sound of Emma’s shaken sobs makes Regina turn around at last; she sees tears rolling down Emma's dirty cheeks, and her own eyes widen at the sight. “Please, don’t do this!” 

 

Snow White takes a moment to compose herself; she steps back and straighten her robes, before answering. “Apology not accepted.” Regina hears the words, and tastes their metallic tang in her own mouth as if it were she herself who had spoken them. 

 

(And, after all, didn’t she speak something similar once, long ago?)

 

“Let me fix it.” Emma offers a desperate, shaken plea, her palms upwards.

 

The Queen leans forward again. “How  _ dare _ you?” she says in a low, feral, dangerous voice, teeth bared and shining. “How could you do or be anything akin to what you made me lose? How dare you imply that  _ you _ could ever compensate?” Sheer hatred drips from each of her words. “You are nothing.” 

 

At this, Emma visibly loses any shred of hope she might have been harboring. She slides to the floor and collapses there, like a broken puppet. Regina keeps herself turned towards Emma, but focuses her eyes on a spot on the wall, part of her still numb and another part upset by both Snow’s inhumanity and Emma’s begging, the sight almost indecent. 

 

And then, Emma says it, her words so quiet Regina almost misses them. “I forgive you.” 

 

Regina’s heart freezes. 

 

Snow flares in hatred. “Bring me her heart,” she snarls, her voice a torrent of hate and magic and venom. And even before consciously understanding the command,  Regina makes her way towards Emma, who has her eyes fixed on the mirror as Snow spits her last words to her. “I will bathe it in salt and devour it, tear it and swallow it into nothingness." She pauses for a moment, draws in a deep breath and exhales slowly, and then adds, " _ You’re _ nothing.”

 

It’s so very easy. So very right. _ Snow White deserves justice. Snow White deserves what is due to her.  _ The mantra echoes through Regina’s brain, drowning out anything else.

 

She kneels before Emma and forces her to raise her head by grabbing a handful of messy blonde hair. With the other hand, she searches in her belt for her knife and removes it. It turns out this Queen also knows how to pull the strings of others to make them dance at her will. She finds she doesn’t care. She only sees justice now. Emma Swan dying, that’s justice. 

 

She places the edge of the knife under Emma's chin, jerking her head upward. A trail of blood runs down the blade and stains her hand. Emma's eyes are shiny and somehow empty, focused on a spot on the wall behind Regina, past any sense of terror and despair. Regina looks intently at her and what she sees there reminds her of the Snow White she still hates (so honest, self-righteous, a pretty face masking a selfish, dangerous demon) and the Emma whose sole purpose in life is to ultimately destroy her and take away everything (everyone, the only one) she holds dear. She drags the knife down, down, to that precise spot at Emma's left breast, and presses. More blood. Scarlet fluid expands over the disheveled shirt. She would swear she can feel the heartbeat against her fingertips. She looks into her victim's eyes again. She wants to see the light fade when she pushes further, just a little bit further… 

 

And there, suddenly, the incomprehensible and complex mosaic that Emma Swan really is appears, looking back at her. Regina is immediately overwhelmed by flashes of the young lover who knew how to draw the most delicious kisses, of the terrified child left on her own to fight her demons, of this world’s bandit, rejected once more and still brave and strong despite a world that wants to destroy her. That bravery, that obstinance, reminds her so much of  _ her  _ Emma. The Emma who, deep down, she has always known cares so deeply for Henry, the Emma who is Henry’s other mother, and whose death would leave him devastated.  

 

She’s the Emma of  _ "she isn't dying" _ and  _ "I believe her" _ . And even the Emma whose timid, absurd  _ "Hi" _ shattered Regina’s life into pieces. That's her Emma, too, and she finds she’s almost forgot how to despise and fear her anymore… 

 

The hand still clutched in dirty blond locks runs down the white, trembling face and cups her chin, softly rubbing the ugly cut there. A single thought takes form in Regina's magic-hazed mind, chasing away any idea of long overdue justice. It’s a single thought, but a potent one:  _ Emma must be protected. At any cost. _

 

She closes her eyes, breathing deeply, and the sweet scent of grass and earth comes to her in waves through the window, through the stones. Regina draws the knife back and calls on her magic. In one painful burst of power she breaks the mirror, pieces flying all over the room, and with it severing the connection between herself and Snow. She covers Emma’s body with hers and feels the glass shatter against her back. Trapped between her body and the wall, Emma looks shocked, then confused, then relieved, then worried. 

 

"You're hurt," She mumbles, eyes still wet and chest still bloody.

 

Regina is very hurt and drained, indeed. But there's no time for healing. She takes the blanket from her belt, leaving bloody prints all over the white wool, and tucks it around Emma's shoulders.

 

“Go. Be safe.” In a final agonizing effort, she pulls one last strain of magic out of her entrails to envelop Emma in a dark green cloud and send her to the depths of the forest. Then, she lets out the pained cry that has been swirling in her throat and lies down on the floor, waiting…

 

"Sorry I'm late," Regina hears Snow say.  _ Of course _ , she thinks, but she cannot move.

 

A blast of energy turns around  her body, making her back collide against the floor. She cries again when she feels the tiny pieces of glass sink deeper into her skin.

 

"You sent my dinner away. I am going to need a substitute." Snow White stands magnificent and beautiful above her, her long, silky black hair floating around her, propelled by sheer dark magic. Ignoring the discarded knife lying on the floor a few feet away, Snow kneels beside Regina and digs into her chest with her bare hand. The pain of her heart being ripped out of her body is unlike anything Regina has felt before. It fades though, alongside everything else, when Snow White bites into it viciously, dark blood painting a grotesque mask all around her delicate mouth.

 

* * *

 

Regina opens her eyes to a white nothingness and to the thundering rhythm of her heart in her ears. She sits up quickly, a name in the tip of her tongue. She doesn't have time to utter a word before she spots the figure lying beside her.

 

Emma is clutching at her chest and breathing painfully, as if she had been the one to have her heart ripped out. A certain ashy tone glows ghostly on her, too. It’s the real Emma now, but something’s not right.

 

“What’s wrong?” She places her hand above Emma's, but doesn't dare to touch her. Has she failed? It certainly looks like something has gone terribly wrong. Is it because she got herself killed?

 

"Regina…" Emma closes the distance between them with her own shaking hands. Regina wraps her fingers violently around them.

 

"What's happening?" She inquires again, lowering her head so close to Emma that her hair brushes Emma's left cheek.

 

“I just—I just wanted to belong.” With this, Emma starts to fade away, that blue light glowing sharp. 

 

"No! Wait!" She needs to solve this before embarking on a new quest in another one of these worlds created by Emma's mind. What if she fails again? What will that do to the real Emma Swan, the Emma Swan Henry has entrusted her to return to him? But her hand grasps at thin air. Emma is gone.

 

_ No _ , she thinks again. She tries to make sense out of what's happened before she too is dragged  away. 

 

_ Emma just wanted to belong. _

 

The urge to go back for her things. To go back to the castle, risking being slaughtered like a clueless doe. Had it been a mere excuse to see Snow White one more time? Had she  _ wanted _ to get caught?

 

She had been so convinced it was all about that blanket, about that emotionally valuable item. She has thought it was the thing Emma needed to escape. But maybe Emma had never really wanted to run away. She had just wanted someone to beg her to stay. 

 

The world shifts out of focus when she realizes. This whole time, she has been so wrapped up in her own painful thirst for justice that she hadn’t seen it. 

 

She had missed Emma’s desperate thirst to belong.


	6. ABSedarian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [absedarian](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ABSedarian/pseuds/ABSedarian).

****Before Regina can think any more about what she should have done for Emma, what the Emma in the woods might have really needed to feel loved, to feel wanted, the white nothingness slowly dissipates and reveals a new environment, and it's a sight that brings back some of her worst memories.

 

She's in a prison cell, and her first thought is that she's back in Evil Snow's castle, still alive for some reason but imprisoned. Her hand automatically moves to her chest and she exhales in relief at the strong heartbeat she can feel inside. What she can't feel, however, is her magic. This time it’s not only muted, it’s gone entirely.

 

She looks down her own body, taking in the drab khaki prison garments, and wonders where Emma's subconscious and the splintering magic have taken her this time. Emma isn't here with her, though, and all Regina can do is wait, sure by now that she'll show up at some point. She sincerely hopes that what Emma needs from her doesn't involve breaking out of this place; there is no chance of doing that without her magic, and she really isn’t the type to dig a tunnel with a spoon. She is a queen, after all, and much more refined that that.

 

On impulse, Regina tests the door, but it remains locked, so she lies down on one of the two bunks and closes her eyes to take a breath and wait for things to come. She has so much to think about, to digest what she has learned about Emma, about _herself_ in the past however many hours, possibly days. She wonders if they put her body next to Emma’s in the hospital, on medical support as well. She wants to believe that Henry would insist on that, even with the way things are between them right now, but she’s on a mission to save Emma, and she remembers his shock when she fell unconscious after drinking the potion.

 

She doesn't have to wait long enough to come up with any conclusions to the questions whirling in her mind. Metal is clanking against metal, and then Emma is pushed through the door none too gently by a guard with a snarled, "Don't think you'll get special treatment just because you let yourself get knocked up. Maybe you'll end up lucky and the other inmates will take care of your problem for you."

 

The guard snickers at his own cruel comment, and then leaves. Regina barely notices, her eyes focused on Emma, who is curled up in her bunk, silent tears running down her face. To Regina's surprise she's not visibly pregnant yet but she has to be.

 

"Have you just found out that you're pregnant?" The question is out of Regina's mouth before she can stop herself.

 

Emma looks up, startled at the voice as if she hadn't noticed Regina's presence before, and a small sound of dismay escapes her lips before her defiance kicks in. "So they decided to put someone else in here with me after all? Good to know that their word means nothing."

 

Regina tries a small smile. This having to win Emma's trust again and again is getting tiresome, but she hopes she's getting better at it. At least she's learning more about Emma with every new reality she's sent to. She’s not sure if that’s a good thing. "Maybe they thought you could use the help," she offers gently, adding a quick, "I'm no threat to you," for good measure.

 

Emma scoffs, disbelief written all over her face and body language. "Why are you here?"

 

Regina replies without thinking. "I don't know yet."

 

"You don't know why you're in jail? That's new."

 

"No, no, I know why I'm here," Regina corrects quickly. "I just don't know why I'm _here_." She indicates the bunk she's sitting on.

 

"So what are you in for?" Emma leans back against the wall behind her cot, the conversation seeming to distract her enough to allow her to relax a little. Knowing Emma, at least _her_ Emma, she suspects it might be pure show. The Emma she knows wouldn’t relax this quickly in her presence.

 

Regina thinks about lying but remembers Emma's skill. "Murder," is her simple, soft reply. “They say I killed a…friend, and even if that's not true, I’ve still been paying the price.”

 

Unexpectedly, Emma bursts out laughing. "Yeah, right," she giggles, and Regina could never have imagined that sound to come out of Emma Swan. "They don't put killers in minimum security facilities...but if you don't want to tell me, that's fine." She paused before adding a soft, "I was framed."

 

"So was I," Regina replies, thinking of Archie and her mother, dreamcatchers and magic. "It happens." All she can do is keep smiling, although it’s fake. This is a world that is unknown to her, and she feels lost. How is she supposed to help Emma if she's confused herself?

 

An idea hits her. "This is my first day here," she says. "I have no idea how to behave, what to do… How about you help me and I help you?”

 

"Help me with what?"

 

Regina rolls her eyes at the belligerent teenager that’s suddenly coming back in full force. This is an Emma she almost recognizes from the woman she knows. "Your pregnancy,” she explains. “That can't be an easy thing to deal with in here."

 

"Oh." Emma seems to contemplate Regina's words, suspicion not quite gone, but muted now. "Do you know anything about having kids?"

 

 _I don't know much about being pregnant, but you're carrying_ my _child_ , Regina thinks, but doesn't say. It feels strangely intimate worded that way, but also not entirely wrong, even though the words would never, ever see the light of day. "I have a son," she finally reveals, and judging from Emma's nod, it seems to be explanation enough. "How far along are you?"

 

Unconsciously, Emma rests her hand over her lower belly, and now Regina can see the small swell that had been hidden by the shapeless prison gear. "The doc says I'm at about 16 weeks," comes the soft whisper. "Too late to..."

 

Regina can't stop her gasp, even if Emma doesn't finish her sentence, the thought of losing Henry always always _always_ unthinkable to her. If Emma notices her reaction, she doesn't show it. "You didn't know you were pregnant?" Regina recovers enough to ask, and she tries hard to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

 

"I had a lot of stress, lady, okay?" Emma is immediately on the defensive again. "And I was never all that regular to begin with," she adds, a mumbled explanation.

 

"That also happens," Regina soothes, remembering the way her own body had reacted to the stress of losing Daniel and then marrying the king and being thrown into a life she never wanted.

 

Emma yawns, and it's wide and uncouth, but also slightly endearing, which shocks Regina. It must be the way Emma reminds her of Henry. "I have no idea why I'm so tired all the time," the girl mutters, sounding disgusted with herself.

 

"There's a lot of change going on in your body right now," Regina replies. "You need the rest."

Her only reply is a hum that segues into a light snore. Regina keeps watch over the sleeping girl for a while, wondering what she's supposed to be doing now. After a while of studying Emma's features—in repose there's so much of Henry there that she finds it relaxing—her eyes fall closed and she drifts off.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Regina realizes when she opens her eyes is that time apparently moves differently inside Emma’s consciousness, at least this time. Emma is standing in the middle of the cell, trying to stretch her back with a groan, her belly protruding considerably more than it had when she had first got here.

 

Emma turns to face her with a relieved smile. “Oh, good, you’re awake,” she says around a small, pained groan. “Can you rub my back like you did the other day? That was so good.”

Regina can’t remember doing anything like that, balks at the idea in fact, but her body is standing before she knows it. She leads Emma to her bunk and sits down behind her, hands on her lower back as if she’s done the exact same thing a hundred times before. And who knows, maybe she has, and she’s just experiencing a weird kind of amnesia inside this reality the magic has cooked up inside Emma’s head.

 

“Oh, yes, right there,” Emma groans, and the sound shoots through Regina’s body like lightning. She shakes it off immediately because it’s impossible that she’s affected by this, by Emma. She doesn’t even _like_ this woman, at least when she's not saving her life, and even then she can barely tolerate her.

 

As she massages Emma’s back and watches the girl turn to jelly in her capable hands, she wonders if that’s what Emma needs from her here. Care, friendship, back rubs, reassurance; things she assumes Emma didn’t have during the actual experience. She wishes she knew more about Emma’s time in prison, but it’s not something that has ever come up between them as anything but a barb she’s thrown at the younger woman, something she’s beginning to feel surprisingly bad about now.

 

“Do you think I should keep it?” Emma asks after a moment but it comes out more like a sigh.

 

The question is so tentative that Regina is immediately alert. Is that why she’s here? Her fingers still against Emma’s back. “Is that something you’re considering?”

 

“Please don’t stop,” Emma breathes. Regina can’t help the small upward curl of her mouth at that, and her fingers start moving again. Emma purrs before she continues, “I don’t know… I'm 17 years old and in prison... I’m not mother material, Regina.”

 

“But you can be,” Regina replies without a second thought. “Nobody’s a mother until they actually _have_ a child to care for.”

 

“So you think I should keep the kid?”

 

A burning _NO!_ almost erupts from Regina’s throat. She hates Emma Swan and her subconscious or the magic or whatever’s going on here for putting her in this position. She knows she has to do whatever Emma needs to save her, but she can’t even entertain the idea of not having Henry in her life. Not for a second, not even for this hypothetical scenario, can she? “I…I don’t think that’s feasible, Emma,” she whispers around the lump in her throat.

 

Emma looks at her over her shoulder, probably alerted by her strangled voice. “Is something wrong?” she asks tentatively. “Did I say something…?”

 

Regina shakes her head. “My son… Henry,” she smiles at the sound of his name, the thought of him. “I adopted him.”

 

“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Where is he now? Is he with his dad?”

 

Regina has no idea how to answer that, so she decides to go with, “At home. With his grandfather.” And that thought still makes her slightly nauseous.

 

There’s another “Oh,” and then, “Is he happy?”

 

Now that he has his precious birth mother, Regina thinks acidly. Or he will be once she gets Emma out of this mess. “He wasn’t always … but now? Yes, I think so.”

 

“Good.” Emma moves away from Regina, stretching her body. “I can’t believe I have to pee again.”

 

Regina snorts, a completely un-ladylike sound, and watches Emma leave through the open cell door.

 

* * *

 

When Emma returns Regina could swear that more time has passed, Emma’s belly just a little rounder than just moments before, her walk now closer to a waddle than it was when she walked out. Regina shakes her head, trying to switch gears.

 

Emma’s face is set in a mask of anger, her whole body tense, hands curled protectively around her lower belly. Regina is on her feet in an instant, wondering what’s wrong, when she hears the footsteps behind Emma, and sees a man following her into the cell. There’s a lecherous grin on his face and his eyes are dark and beady. Regina can feel the malice coming off the officer in waves, and she positions herself between him and Emma in a split-second.

 

“Come on, Swan,” the guy wheedles, completely ignoring Regina. “You know you like me.” He takes another step closer to Emma, almost walking into Regina, which is the moment when she finally realizes that Emma seems to be the only one who can actually see her. That or she’s considered so irrelevant as to be invisible to this creep.

 

Invisible or non-existent as she may be to him, Regina makes herself as tall and imposing as she knows how, pulling up the Evil Queen from the depths of her soul, and stands firm in front of Emma. “Get the hell out of here, you mongrel,” she growls low in her throat, every instinct telling her to protect Em—to protect _Henry_. Her hand is opening of its own accord, preparing to incinerate him, but it stays empty. Of course.

 

The guy is not impressed by her invisible and inaudible order, but Regina can feel Emma relax a little behind her back. “Come on, Swan, what’s so bad about a blow job, eh?” he tries again. “You know I can make your life so much easier.” His grin morphs into a scowl. “Or so much worse. It’s not a hard choice to make, especially not for a teen slut like you.”

 

Regina is trying to pull up her magic from _somewhere_ when she can suddenly feel Emma standing taller behind her. “Get the hell out of here, you mongrel,” Emma echoes Regina’s words, mimicking her stance.

 

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Regina snarls, hoping to inspire Emma further. “Accosting a pregnant woman.”

 

Emma repeats the words with all her anger, adding a few choice words of her own. She steps around Regina, more confident now, and just keeps berating the guard, Regina’s hand at her back providing the necessary courage. Her voice is getting louder, and soon there are several other women in the doorway, yelling at the guard, who decides that retreat is the better option for him. He storms out to a chorus of jeers and insults, followed by hooting and hollering, but Regina doesn’t care about any of that, her eyes fixed on Emma with a smile that is part proud, part…something else entirely.

 

What that is, Regina decides not to think about. She does _not_ like this woman.

 

When the guard is gone, and with him the other inmates, Emma faces Regina with an elated grin. “Thank you,” she breathes, wrapping her arms around Regina in a spontaneous hug, her belly pressed awkwardly into Regina’s midsection. Before Regina has time to react and push her away, Emma withdraws again and sits down on her bunk. “I… It was good to have you here. I mean, I don't even know if you're really here or just a figment of my imagination but it's good to have you here,” she rambles. “He’s been pretty obnoxious recently, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with him. Your presence helped.”

 

“You’ve always known how to deal with an imbecile like that. It’s your circumstances that made it difficult for you.” Regina shrugs off the praise, unsure of how to deal with this touchy-feely version of Emma or with her own jumbled feelings about this whole situation. It had been so easy, so _liberating_ to call forth the Evil Queen, or at least as much of her as she could without magic, but that part of herself had also disappeared as quickly as it had shown up. And both had felt good.

 

Suddenly exhausted, Regina sits down across from Emma, and before she can focus on another thought, her mind goes blank.

 

* * *

 

When awareness returns, Regina is wary of opening her eyes. This reality of Emma's can't be over yet, she thinks, _hopes_ really. She can't have failed again. With a start she realizes that she hasn't seen _her_ Emma yet, the one from her reality, and that thought gives her the courage to open her eyes, sure that there is yet more to come in this world where she only exists in Emma's mind. A figment of the imagination inside the head of magically created splinter of a consciousness, in fact.

 

Regina sighs against the oncoming headache.

 

Her eyes are forced open a second later by a harsh groan of pain from her cell mate and a slightly panicked, "Regina!"

 

The baby's coming. _Henry_ is coming.

 

Emma's screams alert the other inmates, and soon she's taken to the small hospital wing. Emma gives her a pleading look. "Stay with me?"

 

And just like that, Regina thinks she finally has figured out what Emma needs from her here. Support. Love. It’s certainly not what she would choose to do any given day, but if she has to, if it gives her the opportunity to actually see Henry being born, she’ll do it happily.

 

She nods frantically, and rushes along, one hand being crushed in Emma's death grip when another contraction hits. The contractions are coming really close together now, and Regina wants to scold Emma for waiting so long to alert anyone to them. She even forgets to yell at Emma for being presumptuous enough to take her hand.

 

“I thought they were just normal back pains,” Emma gasps right then. “I had no idea.”

 

“You should have woken me up,” Regina grumbles but she can’t help the warmth in her eyes, and she’s not sure she wants to at this point. She wonders what Emma sees in her eyes, her face because she gets a beautiful smile in return. “For a back rub or something,” Regina finishes, but it’s more of a murmur.

 

Emma smiles until the next contraction hits and her face crumples in pain, her hand threatening to crush the smaller bones of Regina’s hand. They've made it to the small hospital ward by now, and Emma is handcuffed to the bed with long cuffs that allow room for movement but not enough to flee. Regina is seething at the sight, but Emma looks simply resigned. She doesn't have time to complain anyway since the contractions are coming fast and furious now. A short while later the doctor declares Emma ready to push.

 

Regina starts to feel decidedly helpless against the pain and exhaustion on Emma's face.  For now, all her anger at the other woman is gone, superseded by the joy of being able to welcome Henry into the world, even if it’s only in a magically produced alternate reality. She holds onto Emma's hand and whispers encouragements in a constant stream. "You can do this, Emma," she whispers. "You're almost done." She's pushing sweaty hair out of Emma's face, wishing she'd had a cloth with which to cool a forehead strained from pushing. "Henry's almost here," escapes her mouth, without her conscious consent, but Emma doesn't seem notice.

 

Then there's a lusty cry, and all Regina can do is press her hand against her mouth to try and stifle the sob that is bubbling up with startling suddenness. She doesn't succeed, and it's soon echoed by Emma's sobs, which are tinged with sadness, regret, and exhaustion.

 

"Would you like to hold him?" the doctor asks, voice not unkind.

 

Emma is shaking her head furiously. "I can't... I—I'm not a mother... I can't be a mother..."

 

Regina sees the longing in Emma's eyes despite her protests, and leans in close. "Hold him, just once," she whispers. "Give him what he needs most right now. Allow yourself this one moment. He's been with you for nine months, allow yourself this one moment more."

 

"I don't think I can," Emma croaks, watching the nurse who is cleaning the boy, eyes burning with need and indecision. "I don't think I can give him away once I hold him."

 

"Emma, you're doing what is best for him." Regina has no idea if what she's doing is right, but she has a feeling that _not_ holding Henry is one of Emma's regrets. If it's not, she hopes she's not making things worse, but since this is just an alternate reality, she assumes she has some leeway. "He will go to a very loving home, he's going to make somebody very, very happy." Her voice breaks. "He will be loved, deeply and forever."

 

"You think so?" Emma needs to know.

 

"I know so."

 

Emma nods, already holding out her arms for her child. The nurse places him into her arms, and he curls into her immediately, a contented sigh escaping his puffy lips. "He's so beautiful," Emma rasps, one finger stroking the feathery tufts of dark hair on his head.

 

Something in Emma's voice makes Regina tear her eyes away from Henry. When she meets Emma's eyes, she knows without a shadow of a doubt that she's looking at _her_ Emma. "He is," she says, forcing the words out through the lump in her throat. "Our son is so very, very beautiful."

 

"Our son, huh?" Emma repeats.

 

"He will be," Regina replies, a promise she doesn't know how to keep yet. Sharing Henry has never been something she considered for even a second, but this moment, sharing his actual birth, has changed things. She doesn’t have a choice anyway but now the bitter pill might be a little easier to swallow. "He will be."

 

"I hope so." Emma looks from Henry to Regina and back. "He's going to love us both, Regina, just like we both love him. I know I said some... things recently, but I know that you love him, and I'm glad he has you. He’s going to remember he loves you, too. Without any spells or potions.”

 

Regina runs her fingers through Henry's hair, and if they cling to Emma's fingers for a second, well, she won't ever mention that. She can feel the shift in the air this time before she can see her surroundings dissolving, changing even as she tries to cling to this moment, this reality, not ready to let her baby boy out of her sight yet.

 

It is in vain, of course, another choice that’s not hers to make. As the room around her blurs more and more, she hears Emma's whispered "thank you” and finds herself wondering if she shouldn't be the one thanking Emma instead.

 

Then Emma is gone, _Henry_ is gone, and Regina feels emptier than she has in a long time.

 


	7. Mustdefine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [mustdefine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mustdefine/pseuds/mustdefine).

Regina wakes to the sound of an alarm clock squawking loudly. She silences it and pushes hair out of her face, wincing at the headache hammering at her skull. This Regina has a bottle of water and painkillers on the nightstand. She helps herself to a few ibuprofen and drains the bottle before getting her bearings.

She’s in a very small room that barely fits a twin bed, desk, and dresser. The desk is covered in open textbooks and notes. Regina flips open a divided binder, skims the contents.  _ Introduction to Psychology. Introduction to Chemistry. World Civilizations 1. Advanced Composition. Spanish I. _ She glances over the neatly-written schedule and up at the calendar on her wall. This world’s Regina Mills appears to be a first-year college student partway through her first term.

A student who is going to be late for class if she doesn’t hurry. 

* * *

There’s a test in Chemistry. How delightful. Regina has excellent recall and a knack for the subject, of course, but she hasn’t studied chemistry since eight years into the first curse. She hopes the other Regina won’t be too badly affected by her performance. For now, she'll attempt to follow the schedule’s precise directions in hopes that she'll run into Emma.

She has ten minutes until her next class after she gets out of Chem. According to her schedule, that is barely enough time to acquire a beverage at the student lounge before going to the English building. Regina elects for coffee and a fruit cup in hopes that it will help her lingering headache and dehydration. The line moves slowly, however, and she has to hurry at a rather undignified pace across the quad. She still hasn’t spotted Emma among the dozens of students she’s seen. Perhaps she can use the two-hour break after this class to—

A woman in a hooded sweatshirt darts in front of her at the base of the stairs. “Watch where you’re going!” Regina snaps.

“Sorry,” the woman calls back. Regina falters for a second (is that...?) but a cluster of passing students block her way. By the time she glares her way up the stairs and finds her classroom, she is in fact late for class. The only open seat is next to Hoodie, who’s got her arms folded over her textbook and her face buried in the bend of her elbow.

“Today we’ll be talking about the compare and contrast essay assignment that’s due in two weeks,” the instructor begins. “And just as a reminder, your journaling assignment is due tomorrow. I’ll be handing back your last assignment in a few moments; first I want to talk about use of the first-person point of view in academic writing...”

“Slumming it in the last row?” says a muffled voice.

Regina looks over. One eye is visible in the mass of gray sweatshirt. “I beg your pardon?”

“You usually sit up front.”

“Have you been watching me?”

“You’re kind of hard to miss.” She sits up, tugs the hood further over her blonde hair and reaches for a gigantic mug of gas station coffee. “Also, we were in that group project together? You kept calling me an idiot.”

She can’t be more than a year or two older than the Emma in prison. And where Regina's Emma—rather, the version with which Regina is familiar—is vibrant and distractingly well muscled, this girl looks red-eyed and sallow, lean frame swallowed by the baggy sweatshirt. “I’m sure you deserved it,” Regina says, because in every universe Emma Swan is still an idiot, but she’s finding it difficult to think of anything right now other than the memory of looking at Emma over Henry’s downy head.

This Emma only snorts and buries her face in her mug. “You’re going to go far in life with an attitude like that.”

Regina’s about to snap _ Look who’s talking _ , but the professor has reached their row and is handing back assignments. Hers is marked with an A and a brief comment about her “commendable passion for justice.” She’s unsurprised to see that the other Regina is an excellent student. She glances over at Emma’s paper out of curiosity. It’s covered in red ink. Emma’s biting her lip hard, brow furrowed. One of her fists works spasmodically. She mumbles, “Damn it,” and says nothing more for the rest of the class. Regina wonders if she ought to say something to her seatmate, but it appears that they are only passing acquaintances in this reality. 

The idea of bail bondsperson Emma Swan attending an institute of higher education is certainly a novelty. Regina wonders what confluence of events brought this world's Emma and Regina to the same university. She wonders if Storybrooke exists; if magic does. If her baby boy is out there somewhere without her, or if... Her heart clenches painfully. 

Caught up in her thoughts, Regina barely notices when class ends and Emma darts for the door. She follows at a slightly slower pace, watches Emma jog down the steps and disappear into a sea of hoodies and backpacks. She has to focus. This Emma Swan needs something from her, but what that is remains to be seen.

* * *

Regina uses part of her two-hour break to prepare for the test in her Spanish class that afternoon. The vocabulary and grammar are very similar to the old language of her father’s kingdom, and Regina finds herself remembering the intricate stories he’d whispered to her at night—remembers seeking out the kitchen as a child for warmth and sweets and homey chatter she’d half-understood. Her mother had put a stop to all that, of course ( _ you will be a queen, Regina, and you must not waste your time on such useless pursuits). _ She suspects that this Regina may have chosen to study Spanish as an act of rebellion as well as a reclamation of heritage. Well, then. She’ll make every effort not to derail her progress and grades.

As bittersweet and challenging as the subject may be, however, she isn’t here to take on student life. The rest of her break is spent doing some research. Storybrooke is nowhere to be found, as far as she can tell, but she does track Emma down on the social networking site the other Regina had bookmarked. The girl's profile isn’t very active. Her sparse posts are mostly complaints about menial jobs, difficult assignments, and sleep deprivation. The impression of an overworked, overwhelmed loner solidifies. Regina forms a plan.

She finds Emma after Comp class the next day. Emma is glaring furiously at a messy, handwritten sheet like it’s personally harmed her.

“Miss Swan. Something the matter?”

“Uh, yeah, if you count getting a D on a journaling assignment as a problem. How the hell does that happen?”

“May I?” Regina asks, gesturing at the sheet. Emma slides it over warily. Regina takes the seat next to her and peruses the paper. “First of all, you wrote this by hand instead of typing it as requested. Secondly, there’s no analysis, no conclusion; it’s simply your thought process. Word for word, I assume. Given the assignment guidelines it’s a wonder he didn’t fail you completely.”

Emma looks sort of angrily bewildered. “I thought I followed the guidelines!”

“In my opinion, you didn’t.”

“Your opinion, huh? What did you get, an A?”

“I did.”

Emma’s scowl intensifies. “I just don’t get it. I work really freaking hard in all my classes and I study for hours. But I get Cs and Ds while people like you just...cruise past me.”

“I don’t doubt that  _ you _ think you’re making a sufficient effort. However, it may be that you lack the understanding of how to direct your efforts and of what exactly assignments may entail.”

“So, what, you’re saying I’m stupid?”

She raises an eyebrow at the belligerent tone. “No, I’m saying you may benefit from some guidance before you fail out of school.”

“Oh, you’re offering to guide me because you know everything?”

“I’m trying to help you, Miss Swan, since you clearly need it.”

“I didn’t ask for your help, lady. I don’t need anything from you.” Emma gathers up her things and walks out.

_ That could have gone more smoothly.  _ Regina shakes her head and follows. “Miss Swan! Wait. I’m…sorry.” The other girl halts, back to Regina. “I could have phrased that more diplomatically.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I’m not very good at helping people. Or letting them help me, for that matter." So few had ever reached out to Regina in all of the time she’s been trapped in various cages. It had seemed a waste to extend herself to anyone but her son. She thinks of the guarded woman who’d come to Storybrooke with few friends but who’d been irrevocably drawn to Henry. Regina grits her teeth at the thought but makes herself admit, “It seems to me that you may be similar.”

Emma turns around slowly, hands gripping her backpack’s straps, considers her for a long moment. “So…what you’re saying is we’re both assholes?”

“That is not what I am saying,” Regina retorts before she notices the little quirk at the corner of Emma’s mouth.

“No, I get it. And you want to, like, tutor me to apologize.”

“That is a gross oversimplification of—” Emma smiles ingratiatingly, bouncing a little on the soles of her worn sneakers, and Regina sighs. “What is your availability, Miss Swan?”

* * *

Emma is late for their first tutoring session. “Sorry,” she pants, dropping her bag on the library floor and plopping into the seat across from Regina. “Work was crazy and the bus was late.”

Regina presses her lips together. It’s not a great start, but she’ll overlook it this once. “Let’s begin by assessing your situation. Which class is most difficult for you right now?”

“Well, uh, I have a Bio quiz on Friday and I flunked the last two. I just kind of froze up.”

She writes that down. “What else do you struggle with?”

“Um, writing, obviously. Math’s not too bad, that’s my best class right now…”

After about twenty minutes, Regina has an idea of how dire the situation is. Emma doesn’t know how to study efficiently, struggles with writing lengthy essays, has little idea how to prioritize and manage her time. She barely passed the GED. She appears to be on track for failing most of her classes. This will be a quite a task, to say the least.

“You look more fried than I feel.”

Regina musters a thin smile. “I do love a challenge.”

“Well, you’re gonna love me,” Emma mutters.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Listen, I gotta get to work.”

“You’re leaving? I thought you said we had two hours every Wednesday.”

“Yeah, sorry, I had to pick up a shift this afternoon.”

“Miss Swan, I asked you to commit to a period of time weekly. If you aren’t serious—”

“I’m serious! I just need this shift to cover some bills, okay? I’m sorry, it was kind of a last-minute thing. But I’m free all Saturday morning. I’ll bring the coffee?” She smiles, exactly like Henry does when he’s trying to wheedle something out of her. Regina is immune. Completely immune. The most immune.

“Very well. Saturday as soon as the library opens. And none of your gas station sludge, mind you. Real coffee.”

“Real coffee, got it. Thanks!” And Emma’s gone, a tornado of blonde hair and annoyingly persuasive smiles. Regina rubs a hand across her forehead and hopes that she can discern what Emma needs without having to endure too many sessions.

* * *

Time whirls and fades much like it had in prison, blurs into a haze of studying and writing papers, resolves into sun spilling through the high windows of the campus library. Faint warmth brushes against the side of Regina’s face. She shifts papers and shades her eyes with one hand, considers moving, but she likes the view of autumn leaves and pale blue sky.

“Morning,” Emma says upon arrival. She slides a cup of coffee over to Regina and sits next to her, golden hair haloed in the early morning light. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is to begin with an overview of academic writing.” Regina passes her a few handouts, courtesy of the university’s Writing Center, and consults her agenda. “Next, we’ll begin work on the essay due for Comp. After that, we will tackle…” When she finishes, Emma is staring at her. “What?”

“Nothing, just...sounds very organized. Think I picked a good tutor.”

“ _ You _ picked—”

Emma is grinning at her again. It transforms her tired features, makes her look more like the older Emma Regina knows. Not that Emma smiles at her this often or this genuinely. “You’re really easy to rile up, you know that?”

“Will you pay attention for once in your life? I am trying to help you here.”

“Okay, okay.” Emma begins going over the handouts. One knee starts bouncing.

Regina huffs and lifts her coffee to her lips. The taste is...acceptable. She hopes it’s enough to get her through explaining three subjects she’d had to cram for last night in addition to her own workload. No wonder she’d woken in this reality with such a headache.

In her peripheral vision, she can see Emma sneaking a glance at her. “Focus, Miss Swan.”

“I am  _ super _ focused. You don’t even know.”

“Somehow I suspect that’s not true.”

* * *

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ Have you received your History exam grade yet? _

**_Emma Swan_ **

_ uh _

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ “Uh” is not an answer, Miss Swan. _

**_Emma Swan_ **

_ maybe? _

_ hey so did you decide about that movie yet :) _

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ Stop stalling.  _

_ And no, because your suggestion was a frivolous waste of time. _

**_Emma Swan_ **

_ can u blame me _

_ come on Regina we never do anything fun _

_ it’s just a discount theater it’s not like the 9th circle of hell _

_ unlike our study sessions _

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ I am not here to have “fun,” Swan. Your grade? _

**_Emma Swan_ **

_ I said I’d pay!! ugh whatever _

_ a C+ ok. there. r u happy? _

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ Not very. However, it is an improvement over a D. _

_ Come to my dorm tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. 7 sharp, mind, and no excuses about work. _

**_Emma Swan_ **

_ want me to bring anything _

_ wiggles eyebrows _

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ Your draft of our next Comp essay. _

_ And pizza. You’re paying. _

**_Emma Swan_ **

_ u got it your Majesty _

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ Don’t call me that. _

* * *

Regina’s trying to make sense of an essay that seems to have irrevocably wandered away from its thesis statement. Meanwhile, Emma Swan is sprawled across her bed shoving her sixth slice into her mouth, one foot wiggling aimlessly. It’s downright infuriating.

“Miss Swan. Do you think you could  _ possibly _ trouble yourself to review your Biology flashcards? I’m nearly finished with my comments on this and we have limited time tonight.”

Emma drags her sleeve across her mouth. “Sorry, this is the first chance I’ve had to eat all day. And I’m trying to get someone to take my shift tomorrow so I can have extra time to work on that essay before it’s due.”

“That would be ideal, since there’s only so much work I can do on this utterly hopeless draft before I’m essentially writing it for you.”

“Would that be so bad?” Emma asks. She sighs at Regina’s glare. “I know, I know. Worth a try.”

“Perhaps if you bothered to put in any effort at all, you wouldn’t be such a terrible student,” Regina snaps.

“Hey, I work on this shit all the time! I’m  _ trying _ , okay? It’s like my number-one priority.”

Regina’s ready temper is already near the boiling point. For someone who needs so much tutoring and feedback, Emma is terrible at completing homework and revising drafts. Two weeks have gone by in a blur of tutoring and Regina’s no closer to finding the key to this Emma. Regina is not patient when it comes to people—except for Henry, always for Henry—and she’s on her last nerve with Emma. She wheels her chair around to give Emma what-for and is just in time to see a piece of pepperoni drop onto Regina’s clean white coverlet.

“Oops,” Emma says sheepishly.

“Miss. Swan.” Regina bites off the words. “From everything I’ve seen, you prioritize anything  _ but _ your studies. You don’t respect my time or my efforts to help you. You are constantly late, you value a menial job in food service more than a future career, and you’d rather eat or watch movies or take more shifts than study. Frankly, I can’t think of a more ill-considered, ignorant, and lackluster approach to higher education than yours, and at this rate you are destined to be nothing more than the dregs of society!”

Emma’s jaw is visibly clenched. She stands and turns her back to Regina, busies herself scooping up her flashcards and textbook. Regina opens and closes her mouth. She’s not sure what to say. This is the longest she’s been in any universe and she has no idea what she’s done wrong to remain trapped here. She’s still angry at Emma, but she has the sinking feeling that she may have just hindered whatever progress they’ve made.

Emma is already at the door. She stops and speaks over her shoulder without turning to look at Regina. “You know, I work three jobs because I can’t fucking pay for school or my shithole apartment otherwise. I take the bus because I can’t afford to fix my car. I don’t know how to learn right because no one taught me at any of the fifteen schools I’ve been to while I was in foster care. Maybe I’m not the perfect student and maybe you don’t see the all-nighters I pull, but I  _ am _ trying. No thanks to you.”

She’s gone before Regina can take any of it back.

* * *

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ I may have not have been completely fair the other night. _

_ I am aware that you have a challenging schedule, and an undesirable living situation does affect other areas of your life. _

_ Toward that end, I have briefly spoken to a financial aid counselor and emailed you several forms. Perhaps we can meet and fill out those forms as well at our next tutoring appointment. _

_ As a reminder, the comparison and contrast essay is due at midnight tonight. _

* * *

Regina gets a B+ on a Spanish exam. She thinks about sharing the news with Emma, but only because there’s no one else to tell.

* * *

**_Regina Mills_ **

_ I’m unsure if you received my text yesterday. I am willing to continue our sessions if you are. I’ve sent you several more websites that may aid you in how to identify your optimum learning style and studying strategy. _

_ Will you be coming to the library today, Miss Swan? _

_ Emma? Where are you? _

* * *

She hasn’t seen Emma in four days. She comes early to Comp on Monday, waits outside the door. Emma shows up holding an energy drink in one hand and her jug of coffee in the other. She won’t meet Regina’s gaze. “Miss Swan,” she says, following the sullen girl in, and oh how she hates trailing behind like a supplicant. But she feels a little twinge at the dark circles under Emma’s eyes despite herself. Not pity, of course; nothing like it.

“Class is about to start,” is all Emma says.

“That’s never stopped you from talking before.”

Emma shrugs and chugs her energy drink, then her coffee.

“You do realize your heart is going to explode one of these days.”

“Maybe that’s a better ending than being, I don’t know, the dregs of society?”

Regina bites her lip. “Did you receive my apology?”

Emma looks away. “Yeah,” she mumbles.

“How about the financial aid forms and the learning analysis?”

“Yeah. Those were, um, pretty helpful, actually. I was too busy doing homework to respond, but I meant to.”

Emma's still avoiding her gaze, but Regina feels the tension ease somewhat. "Oh. Well...I'm glad."

The professor is coming around again. He’s saying something about being able to hand back their assignments early. Regina takes hers automatically, barely glances at the high grade scrawled in the corner. Next to her, Emma stiffens. The essay is face down in front of her and she’s looking at it as if afraid it will bite her.

“Emma,” Regina whispers, the name still strange on her lips, and Emma shoots a desperate, trusting glance at her and flips the paper.

“Oh,” Emma says.

“Not terrible,” Regina allows, but there’s the barest hint of humor in her tone and Emma starts grinning.

“Guess all your hard work paid off, huh?”

Regina reaches out to brush a fingertip over the B- emblazoned on the page. “Not only mine,” she says, and looks up into Emma’s face. She finds she can’t quite look away when she adds, “You may be an idiot, Emma Swan, but you’re not stupid.” Big green eyes widen and then—at last, at last, after more than two excruciatingly long weeks—the classroom dissolves around them. Instructor and students vanish one by one until it’s just the two of them side by side at a table. Regina breathes a sigh of relief.

“I never thought I could do it.”

Regina looks over. Emma is watching her carefully. “Go to university?” she guesses.

“Yeah. I didn't...I had to give up Henry for his best chance. I could barely take care of myself, you know? They told me after I got out of juvie that I should think about college, but it was so overwhelming when I tried applying. I didn’t have the money. And I didn’t know about loans and financial aid and stuff.”

“So you fell through the cracks.”

“I guess. Plus, I was never a great student. Kept moving around and stuff, never graduated. Didn’t think I was smart enough for college, you know?”

Regina pursues her lips in lieu of a smile. “Well,” she says. “This Emma still has plenty of work left to do.”

“All she needed was someone to believe in her, even a little bit,” Emma says. Regina thinks for a moment of their counterparts bonding over takeout and textbooks. Then the familiar flash of blue light blinds her, washing out a world in which they might be something like friends, and Regina finds herself falling into darkness again.


	8. Allaine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [Allaine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Allaine/pseuds/Allaine).

**** The first thing Regina sees is that she has just walked into a rather familiar pawn shop. So, Storybrooke then. After what feels like an age of being whipped from the Enchanted Forest to caves to Emma’s prison cell to college, finding herself back in the town she created thirty years ago is soothing to her.  She takes a moment to enjoy it, before she takes in whatever new unpleasantness she is about to encounter.

Probably Rumple, since she’s in his shop.  She hasn’t seen any of him during her journey, but all good things must come to an end.

Regina is more right than she imagined, because the second thing she sees is the unmistakable outline of a human body lying on the floor, covered by a white sheet, and the cane lying nearby.

Is it too much for Regina to hope that all bad things must come to an end as well?

She must have stared for too long, because she is startled by someone’s voice. “Surprised, Madame Mayor?”

Her head snaps up and she finally notices that she’s far from the only (living) person in the pawn shop. Doctor Whale is crouched next to the body, evidently having been about to lift the sheet when Regina entered. Standing above him are Graham and — much to her relief — Emma. At least this time she won’t have to go to the trouble of finding her.  The Sheriff’s deputy uniform is a change for her; even as Sheriff, Emma had shown zero interest in finding a uniform that fit her.

Of course, in this world Graham isn’t dead, so there’s no telling what other changes Emma has undergone here.

“By the dead body, or its identity?” she finally replies. “Keep in mind, Sheriff, I can only make an educated guess as to who it is.”

Like a bad dinner-theater magician, Doctor Whale lifts one end of the sheet with almost a flourish, and Regina allows herself to feel some gratification in seeing the lifeless features of Mr. Gold. This isn’t  _ her _ world, but she’s not sorry to see him gone, all the same.  She dimly senses that the Regina buried within her feels the same way.

“I see,” Regina adds.

“First murder here for — ” Graham starts.

“For as long as you can remember?” Emma fills in for him.

He blinks. “Um, yeah, that’s right.” He shakes his head. “Small towns and all.”

Regina looks keenly at Emma. The way Emma had said that, it had sounded like she is at least somewhat aware that the long-term memories of Storybrooke’s population are rather short on details. It’s possible Emma is aware of the Curse as well, assuming that there even  _ is _ a Curse in this timeline.

“You’re positive it’s murder?” Regina asks. “He didn’t die of natural causes?”

“Only if you call the gaping hole in his chest ‘natural causes’,” Doctor Whale chimes in.

“Looks like somebody had a disagreement with Gold,” Emma says, “and stabbed him. Can you think of anybody who might have had a problem with him?”

Regina snorts. “Only anybody who was ever a day late with the rent.”

Graham sighs. “I was thinking along those lines. So three-quarters of the town, basically.” He looks down at Doctor Whale. “Any idea what kind of weapon he was stabbed with? The deputy and I looked all over, and either the murderer cleaned it before leaving it behind, or they took it with them.”

“I can’t be sure until I do a full autopsy,” Doctor Whale says hesitantly. “My preliminary examination suggests that it was long, possibly cylindrical. Something like a hunting knife, or a spike perhaps.” He glances over. “Or even a cane.”

Regina looks down at Gold’s cane. “Someone would have to apply quite a bit of force to stab a man with such a blunt object, Doctor.”

“You’d be excited too if you were stabbing Gold to death,” Emma mutters. Graham looks at her, startled, and she shrugs.

The sheriff turns on his walkie-talkie. “Dispatch,” he says.

“Yeah, Sheriff?” the reply comes a moment later. The voice is unmistakably that of Ruby Lucas.  Regina can’t help but wonder if this means the alleged heart of Kathryn Nolan will be found soon, or if it was ever gone at all in this universe.

“Lock up the station, then get over to Gold’s pawn shop. Someone from the Sheriff’s Department should stay with the body until the ambulance gets here to transport it, and Doctor Whale, to the morgue.”

“Where will you and Emma be?” Ruby asks.

Graham stares directly at Emma. “Rounding up the usual suspects,” he says.

Whatever that means, Emma doesn’t like it. “Oh no,” she says. “No fucking way. You can’t think that he —”

“Emma, you heard the Mayor. Gold had a list of enemies larger than his bank account. There’s no obvious starting point, so we might as well start with the closest thing Storybrooke has to a career criminal.”

“A career  _ vandal _ , maybe,” Emma replies forcefully. “That doesn’t make August a murderer.”

“No,” Graham agrees, “but that does make your brother a person of interest. Where’s he staying these days?”

Regina would say something, but her brain has screeched to a halt.  August Booth?  Emma’s  _ brother?  _  What the hell?  

Emma looks down sullenly at her shoes. “I’ve only seen him once since he got back a couple weeks ago.  Said that he was staying with somebody named Jefferson.”

Graham turns toward Regina. “Jefferson March, I imagine.”

“It’s not a common name,” she agrees. “And his place is out of the way.”

“Who’s Jefferson March?” Emma asks. “I’ve lived in this town all my life and I’ve never heard of him.”

After hearing that Emma and August are siblings, this new revelation is puny by comparison. Still, Regina is even more confused.  Emma was starting to sound like a victim of the Curse, but if that were the case, then she couldn’t be the savior. For that matter, she would still be a baby.

“He’s a recluse,” Graham says. “His father got rich doing — I forget what, it was before my time. His parents died and left him everything. He’s been keeping to himself ever since.”

He’s also not a very big fan of Regina. “If there’s nothing else, Sheriff —”

Emma rolls her eyes.  “Of course she’s got somewhere else to be.  Real busy these days,” she mutters.

“Excuse me, Deputy?” Regina asked.  Uniform or not,  _ that _ sounds more like the Emma she knows.  She gets an odd feeling that she can’t quite place.

But instead of answering her, Emma turns to Graham.  “Fine, let’s go talk to August, if only so he can prove that he didn’t do it.”

Regina notices how Graham pauses before he answers.  “I’ll go talk to August, Emma.  You’re not coming.”

“What?” Emma explodes.  “Are you kidding me? This is the first homicide investigation I’ve ever been a part of, and you’re taking me off it just because I think my brother is innocent?”

“No, I’m taking you off the interrogation because he’s your brother,” Graham says.  “I don’t think it’s wise, and I bet the D.A. would feel the same.”

Emma glares at Regina.  “Did you put him up to this?”

“Why would I?” Regina asks.  Not for the first time since she began searching for pieces of Emma, she feels like she’s missing a crucial bit of information here.  “I didn’t even know Gold was dead until I got here.”  She raises an eyebrow.  “Am I lying?” she adds, referring to Emma’s ‘superpower’.

“You’re always lying,” Emma snaps.  “I can’t tell one apart from another.”

“Enough, Emma,” Graham says.  “I said, I’m taking you off August’s interrogation, not the case.  While I’m with him, you’ll be interviewing Prime Suspect Number Two.”

“Who?” Emma asks.

“I don’t know, Deputy, you tell me,” he says calmly.  “You say it wasn’t August, fine.  So who do  _ you _ think did it?”

Regina watches as Emma thinks it over.  “Killian Jones,” she finally says.

Seriously? Her top suspect is the pirate?

“Killian went on a three-day bender last year, after Gold evicted him from his apartment for late payment of rent,” Emma continues. “Then he made that huge scene on Main Street where he started screaming at Gold, calling him a thief, a liar, and every dirty name in the book.  He’s been living on that crappy boat of his ever since.  Seems as good a candidate as any.”

Graham nods approvingly.  It feels to Regina like they’ve worked together for years, which would make sense if Emma really is another victim of the Curse.  “I agree.  Head over to the docks, and then let me know on the radio when you’re finished.”

Ruby bursts through the front door behind her a couple moments later. Regina is impressed not only by the fact that Ruby evidently in this world lasted longer than twenty-four hours as a Sheriff’s assistant, but also that her attire is completely different. “Came as fast as I could,” she says.

“Thanks, Ruby,” Graham answers. “Whale, you going to call for an ambulance?”

“Just as soon as you’re done here, Sheriff,” he says smoothly.

“Then let’s go. Regina, I just wanted you to know first that —”

“Actually, Sheriff,” Regina interrupts, “I’d like to accompany Emma, if you don’t mind.” She looks challengingly at Emma, daring her to say no.  She says nothing at all, but her eyes grow wide.

“Why?” he asks. 

“I’d like to observe, nothing more.  I could come with you, but, well, Jefferson and I don’t get along very well.”

“Plus August hates your guts,” Graham points out. Then he shrugs. “Fine by me. Just both of you, keep in mind that Emma’s on duty, and this is an official investigation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma retorts.

“I mean last Thursday night,” he says.

Regina has no idea what he’s talking about, of course, but the Regina inside her clearly does, because she catches a brief, burning flash of anger.  Emma flushes instantly. “Yeah, fine, whatever.”

Outside, as Graham makes his way towards his cruiser, Emma falls in line with Regina. She doesn’t speak at first, and Regina certainly isn’t going to start, not when Emma is the one with all the facts.  “So,” Emma finally says quietly, “we know a lot of people who bear a grudge against Gold. Anybody not on that list who might have a problem with, you know, Rumplestiltskin?”

Regina wants to rub her temples, because she feels a headache coming on from all the times she’s been forced to re-evaluate the situation. Fine, so there is clearly a Curse. Whether Emma is the answer to the Curse, or just one more person stuck in its web, remains to be seen. “Probably,” she admits. “Rumple was loved even less than Gold was.”

Emma nods as she opens the driver’s side door of her police cruiser.  Regina spots her Mercedes a short distance away and yearns to get back behind the wheel after all this time, but right now it’s more important to keep a close eye on the Deputy. “You don’t think August did it, do you?” Emma asks.

“It’s too early to say,” Regina says, this time completely truthful.

“I mean, he probably didn’t even know Rumple.  Before,” Emma says as they both get in. “He was just a little kid. Sure, he told me all about Rumplestiltskin when I got older, but that was just by reputation.”

Regina starts the car. “When did he tell you that exactly?” she asks.

“Beats me,” Emma says. “Thirteen? Fourteen? He said I was better off not knowing until I was old enough. Course, he said that about a lot of people from the Forest. With Snow, he waited until I was out of elementary school.”

Regina nods, silently willing Emma to keep talking about it.

She keeps talking, but not about that.  “So, you want to  _ observe _ ,” she sneers.  “I know you’ve been really busy lately.  I guess the only way you’d have a few minutes to talk to me is while doing all your important work.”

Regina could take aggressive, antagonistic Emma.  This Emma seems more bitter, almost wounded.  It bothers Regina more than it would have before she began this journey.

“I thought maybe August was wrong about you.  That he didn’t understand you.  That you had changed.  Guess not, though.”

“What kind of things  _ was _ he right about?”

“That you were the Evil Queen, and a horrible, selfish person.”

_ Asshole _ , Regina thinks.

Emma glances over.  “You’re going to tell me he’s wrong?”

“Not precisely,” Regina says slowly.  “I would say that those words do not apply to me as much as they once might have.”

“You mean like back when you cast a curse on everyone, leaving a newborn baby and a little boy to be alone and helpless in the middle of the woods?  If we hadn’t found by those two campers fifty yards from the edge of town I could have died, Regina.”

Kurt and Owen Flynn, obviously.  That explained how Emma could have lived in Storybrooke all her life, without being cursed.  “To be fair, it was your parents who did that.  You would have ended up somewhere safe if the Curse had caught you.”

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t think a lifetime as a baby sounds a whole lot better.”  Emma groans.  “Damn it, Regina, I shouldn’t have to be rehashing all of this! I put it behind me.  _ We _ put it behind us.”

“Then why are you?” Regina retorts.  Protecting Emma in those other worlds had helped Regina to better appreciate her one or two good qualities, but confronted with someone so similar to  _ her _ Emma, and all the old animosities seem to be flaring right up again. 

“Why do you think, Regina?  Because we slept together, and then the next morning you threw me out of your house, and you’ve been avoiding me ever since.”

This startles Regina.   _ Another  _ Emma and Regina romantically involved?  One could have been a fluke.  Two is a bit upsetting.  Although, judging by Emma’s remarks and the emotions rising up from wherever the other Regina is, their romance was already over before Regina even arrived.

“It’s not like I planned that!” Regina says.  She doesn’t know that for sure, but she can’t bring herself to believe that Regina ever could have planned that. 

“Is that it?” Emma bursts out.  “It didn’t happen according to your  _ schedule _ ?  Or was it because you woke up with a hangover Friday morning and the realization that the whole town might find out you were sleeping with another woman?  A woman with nothing, not even a family, beyond a drifter and petty criminal who everyone  _ assumes _ is my brother?  A woman who got herself knocked up as a teenager and still won’t say who the father is?”

Regina doesn’t answer that, partly because she doesn’t know what the real reason was, and partly because they all sound like reasons she would have given in this situation.

Although, now that Emma mentions it, who  _ is _ Henry’s father?  Neal Cassidy can’t possibly be in Storybrooke too, can he?

Emma’s anger suddenly subsides.  “I thought we could be good together, Regina,” she says gloomily.  “You, me and Henry.  I thought we could build something.”

Regina still doesn’t know what to say.  Concerned that anything she says will cause things to flare up again, she remains silent for the one more minute it takes for Emma to reach the docks.

Emma parks and gets out.  “Stay here.  You can observe from the car,” she says.

“Emma —”

“You’re not with the Sheriff’s Department, Regina.  You can’t be a part of this.”

Regina sighs.  “Fine.”

Watching Emma walk away, Regina realizes she has no idea what she’s supposed to do in this world.  There’s a murderer to be caught, sure, but what does that have to do with Emma?  There’s maybe a relationship to save, but Regina wouldn’t even know how to begin, and all she’s getting from the other Regina now is doubts.  

So she observes.

She observes Emma storm over to a piddling, run-down little fishing boat, and bang on the side with her hand.  After a minute, a man seems to stagger out of it, falling to the dock on his knees.  The hook for a hand certainly indicates it’s Killian, but he’s looking a little pudgier than he used to. 

She observes the rather animated conversation that Emma and Killian have, as Emma eventually begins waving her arms in the air.  Killian just says something else she can’t hear, although she can see the attempt at a lecherous look on his face.  That or constipation.

After five minutes of watching Killian deal with being questioned by Emma Swan in a bad mood, Regina sits up straighter when she sees Emma suddenly, violently shove him off the dock and into the water.  Then she unties the boat from the mooring, and shoves it away, before stomping back in what looks to be an utter fury.

“Emma —” Regina says warningly when Emma opens the car door and gets in.

“He’ll be all right,” Emma growls.  “He can swim with one hand.”

“What happened?”

“Says he didn’t kill Gold.”

Regina waits.  “And?”

“And what?”

“He must have said something else for you to assault him like that.”

“Like  _ I  _ assaulted  _ him _ ?”  Emma takes her hand off the shift before she can put the cruiser in reverse.  “Do you know why he was so pissed at Gold?  That time he started screaming drunkenly at him in public?”

“I feel like you’re going to tell me.”

“When Gold evicted him, he kept most of Killian’s stuff.  Including his top-of-the-line telescope.”

“Okay,” Regina says slowly, not understanding at all.  Pirates loved their spyglasses, yes, but not broken-down, two-bit fishermen.

Emma rolls her eyes.  “Regina, come on, what would a guy like Killian, a guy who so clearly wants to be a ladies’ man, and who so clearly fails at it, want with a telescope?”

Regina thinks for a moment before she grimaces.  “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.  The window in that apartment had a great sightline right into Ruby Lucas’ bedroom.”

“He’s a peeping Tom.  How — like him,” Regina says, curling her lip.

“That’s why he was so angry.  He’d been peeping in on Ruby for, who knows, maybe thirty years, and then suddenly he lost both his perch and his scope.”

“Emma,” Regina says, “I’m quite certain that under the town’s criminal code, he just confessed to a crime to a sheriff’s deputy.  Why would he do this?”

For some reason, Emma was starting to look less furious and more worried.  “Well, see, he wanted to gloat.  He says you’d never let me arrest him, not with what he knows.  Seems Killian has taken his little ‘act’ on the road.  Been peeping into other people’s houses with some cheap telescope he bought.”

Regina freezes.  “Don’t tell me.”

Emma finally puts the car in reverse.  “Okay, I won’t.”

Regina waits for a few seconds, and then says, “He wasn’t near  _ my _ house on Thursday night, was he?”

“You said it, not me,” Emma mutters.

“Stop the car,” Regina hisses.  “I’m going to fish him out of the water, so I can turn his shitty boat into a funeral pyre.”

“Can’t, we’ve got a murderer to catch.  Pretty sure it wasn’t Killian, I don’t think he has the balls.”  Emma pauses.  “Maybe it’s not just a murderer we’re after, either.  Never heard of the guy, and now Jefferson March’s name comes up twice in one day.”

“In what way?” Regina asks, aware that Emma is trying to distract her.

“Killian said Gold sold him the telescope.  Killian went up there, barged in on March, found the telescope, checked everything to make sure it wasn’t damaged, and tried to take it with him.  March refused, of course, and they got in a fight.  Killian lost, obviously, but not before he got a good look through the lens.”  Emma had now cycled through rage and anxiety, and into disgust.  “March had the telescope pointed right at a child’s bedroom.”

Regina’s own rage dissipates.  “Who?”

“Paige somebody.  We can check the map, see whose houses are in a direct line from the March house, and —”

“Emma,” Regina says before she can continue.  “Jefferson March had a daughter before the Curse.  Grace.  Paige is who she became in Storybrooke.”

Emma furrows her brow.  “Okay, so maybe he’s not a pedophile then.  But why then is he looking into her window if he doesn’t know that Paige is Grace?”

“Because he obviously does know,” Regina says.  “Which means he has his memories back.  And he’s living in a house with August Booth, who also has his memories.”

“Come on, I told you August would never —” Emma stops.

“What?”

“Remember those stupid pranks I used to pull on you when I was a teenager?  Before I got pregnant with Henry, and had to grow up and come to the one woman who could raise him?”  Emma frowned.  “August suggested once or twice that we ‘take it to the next level’.  But he never said what that meant, and I wasn’t ready for whatever he was talking about.”

Regina nods.  “You think Jefferson might have been ready.”

“Maybe...no, he wouldn’t.  Besides, look, no offense, but wouldn’t they have killed  _ you _ ?”

“None taken,” Regina says, because really, why wouldn’t they?  She had a point.  “Maybe they needed to see if they could actually do it.  They would have hated Rumple too.  He created the Curse after all.”

“Regina,” Emma says suddenly, alarmed, “if there’s even a chance that Jefferson was involved in the murder, Graham is  _ at his house _ .”  She grabbed at the radio.  “Graham, come in, this is Emma.  I’m finished with Killian, over.”

There is no answer, even after she says it again.

“Drive faster, Emma,” Regina says, putting her seat belt on.

“Right.”  Emma reaches for the sirens, then pulls her hand back.  “If Graham’s in danger, probably shouldn’t announce to everyone with ears that the cavalry’s coming.”

“Good point,” Regina replies.  Now  _ this _ is the Savior.

Emma stops the car when Regina warns her Jefferson’s house is just ahead.  “He might see us if you drive any closer,” Regina says.

Both women open their car doors, and Emma looks at Regina, startled.  “Regina, I think the time for observation is over. It might not be safe down there, and you’re still a civilian.”

“You think I’m letting you go down there alone?  No way,” Regina says.  “It might not be safe for you either.”

Emma stares at her.  “Seriously?”

Regina feels strangely offended, as if Emma could possibly know what she’s been going through since this magical little adventure began.  “You think I can’t care about your well-being, Emma?”

“Well…” Emma says.  “Okay then.  But stay back.  I’m going to see if I can get the lay of the land.”

Regina shrugs and hangs back while Emma slips through the trees.  She’s close enough that she can see the driveway.  Graham’s patrol car is still parked there.  Nothing can be heard from the house.

Emma returns a few minutes later.  “Graham’s tied to a chair in a room on the first floor, and he’s out cold.  A guy I didn’t recognize was in the kitchen, must be Jefferson.  Another guy is in the room with Graham, his back to the window, that must be August.  Looks like he’s asleep.”

“Excellent,” Regina says.  “Because I have a plan.”  Without another word, she begins marching down Jefferson’s driveway.

“Regina!” Emma hisses.  “What the hell are you doing?”

Regina doesn’t bother to answer, since letting Jefferson know about Emma’s presence would defeat the purpose.  She just assumes that if her Emma could slay a dragon, this Emma can figure out that Regina is going to bait Jefferson, and maybe August too, out of the house.  She doesn’t dare look behind her, though, so she’s trusting blindly in the Savior.  Something, Regina admits, she is slowly learning to do.

Going up to Jefferson’s door with purpose, like a Mayor on a mission, Regina rings the doorbell and waits.

Ten seconds later, the Mad Hatter opens the door with a smile that could almost be described as jaunty.  “Well, well, well,” he says.  “If it isn’t Your Majesty.”

“I thought you remembered,” Regina replies, acting as if the revolver in his hand isn’t really there, pointing at the ground.  “The Sheriff didn’t know who he was dealing with, but I do.  What have you done with him?”

“Don’t worry,” Jefferson says, leaving the house to grab at Regina’s arm.  “You’ll find —”

Regina guesses he would have said “out soon enough”.  She’ll never know, because Emma comes from out of hiding to the left of Jefferson’s door, and clubs him across the back of the head with her police-issue handgun.  Jefferson collapses without much more than a grunt, and Emma quickly kicks the gun away from his hand.

“Are you alright?” Emma asks anxiously as she cuffs his hands behind his back.

“I’m fine,” Regina says.  “Let’s get August and then get Graham out of there.”

Emma looks like she’s about to argue with Regina yet again over her safety, but she just nods and leads the way into Jefferson’s home.

Unfortunately, they don’t have much of a plan at this point beyond ‘get August’ and ‘get Graham’, and it quickly shows.

“That’s not August,” Emma says blankly.  “Who the hell is he?”

Regina has no answer for her, as they both stare at the man in the chair facing Graham.  He’s out cold, looks disheveled, and the smell of alcohol seems to emanate from his pores.  “That’s not important.  What’s important now is August is somewhere in this house, and we have no idea where —”

“Right here, Your Majesty.”

Regina spins around as she hears Emma say, “August, no!”  Because he is in fact right there, and worse yet, the shotgun in his hands is pointed right at her face.

“It’s okay, Emma.  It’ll be over soon,” August assures her.  “She’ll be dead, the Curse will be broken, and all of us, including the Huntsman there, can return to our old lives.”

“God damn it, August, I defended you!” Emma snaps.  Regina could see her expression if she turned her head, but the barrel of the shotgun is strangely mesmerizing.  “I told Graham, no way August could have killed Gold.”

“Don’t feel bad, Emma,” August says.  “I didn’t kill him.”  He nods his head in the direction of the passed-out drunk.  “Neal did.”

“Who?” Emma asks.

“Baelfire, back in the Forest,” August explains.  “Rumplestiltskin’s son.  We had a chance encounter on my last trip away from Storybrooke, although I like to think of it as fate —m aybe even magic.  Once he knew his old man was in Maine, Neal knew the only way to stay out of Rumplestiltskin’s grasp was to kill him.  So I brought Neal back with me.”

Regina sighs.  “That’s why you killed Gold first.  Let me guess — you two didn’t quite have the guts for murder, so Neal gave you the push you needed.  The only catch was, his kill got priority over yours.”

“I have the  _ guts _ to spray your brains all over the walls of this room, Regina, don’t you worry.  I never lie, you know.”

“August,  _ please _ put the gun down,” Emma says desperately, almost begging.  Regina dares to turn her head slightly, and Emma’s own gun is pointing down at an angle.  Emma doesn’t appear able to lift it higher in August’s direction though.  “Don’t do this.”

“Do what, Emma?  Do what the Savior couldn’t?” August says angrily.  “I go away for a couple years, and when I come back, I find out you were pregnant, and you had a  _ son _ , and you just gave him away to the most evil person in town!  And suddenly you want to be buddy-buddy with her.  ‘For the kid’s sake’, you said.  What about all the other children in town, Emma?  What about the mother who had her child,  _ you _ , taken away?  What about the father who lost  _ his _ son?”

“What was I supposed to do, August?” Emma asks.  “You were gone, and I was alone, I had nobody.  Regina was the only one!  She agreed to be mother to the grandson of Snow White!  And for the first time I thought, ‘Holy shit, maybe she’s not as bad as August always said she was’.”

“And it was all downhill from there,” August sneers.  “Well, it won’t matter once she’s dead.”

“You idiot,” Regina snarls back.  “It’s a  _ dark curse _ .  You can’t break magic like that with murder.  You need some kind of light magic, like True Love’s Kiss!  You pull the trigger, and everyone will still be here in Storybrooke, except everyone will see you as a murderer, and probably Emma too!  You will both lose  _ everything _ .”

“Like that matters to you,” August says.

“You’re right, I don’t care if you lose everything,” Regina answers.  “But do I care what happens to Emma?  I absolutely do.”

She’s been known to lie, but she realizes that’s one hundred percent true.

“August.”

He snaps his head around to look past Regina at Emma.  Regina turns too, and sees that the gun has surprisingly risen all the way up, so that it’s pointing at him.

“August,” Emma says again.  “You’re asking me to step back and let you murder Henry’s mother.  The woman who raised our son.  He was  _ our _ son, August.  Because we made a mistake when we were both drunk, and I was eighteen, and you couldn’t handle it the next day, so you took off and left me for two years.”

Regina stares.  So, she imagines, does he.    

“But now he’s our son, mine and Regina’s.  Because I couldn’t do it by myself, and I couldn’t give him up entirely.  And if I was still going to be a part of my child’s life, and see him every week, I needed to straighten myself out, get a job, and quit the petty vendettas against the woman who was going to raise him. Fuck the Curse.  You may not be happy about it, but I learned to make sacrifices, and you didn’t.”

Regina glances at August and sees him swallow visibly.  “So that night —”

“Now you know why I never told anyone.  Couldn’t have people thinking I slept with my brother.”  Emma tightens her grip on her gun.  “And you think I’m willing to tell Henry that his mother is dead, and that I stood by and did nothing to prevent it?  Think again, August.  Is my nose getting longer?”

August looks hatefully at Regina.  “You did this to her.”

“No,” Regina says.  “I did it for her.”

She has no idea how truthful that statement is, but she feels it’s what Emma needs from her.  

What she needs from  _ him  _ is to put down the shotgun, and finally, with an utterly disgusted sound, he does.  Emma quickly approaches him, spins him around, and puts Graham’s handcuffs on his wrists.  She begins reading August his rights, but all the while she looks back at Regina, mystified.

Now she knows how Regina feels much of the time lately.

* * *

Five minutes later Graham is rubbing the back of his head after he and Emma have wrestled August and a barely coherent Neal Cassidy into the back of one cruiser, and Jefferson into the other. “Don’t remember much,” he says.  “Jefferson appeared to be by himself.  Don’t know whether it was August or Mr. Cassidy who hit me from behind.”

“Are you sure you should be driving?” Emma asks dubiously. “After the hit you took, I’m surprised you don’t think there are four police cars.”

“I’ll be okay. Regina, I don’t know that it’s safe for you to be in the car with me or Emma while we’ve got these killers in the back —”

“I was in that house with them when they were free,” Regina says calmly. “I think I can handle them like this.”  She certainly doesn’t want to be in the cruiser with Graham.  It was bad enough, Killian knowing about her and Emma.  But now she remembers Graham making some reference to Thursday night at the pawn shop, which means  _ he _ knows too.  

“Whatever you say, Madame Mayor,” he says before going to his car.

Regina turns to Emma.  “You told him about what happened between us.”

Emma shrugs.  “He was involved with you first.  Bro code.  He won’t tell, if that’s what you’re more paranoid than usual about.”

Regina snorts.  The other Regina doesn’t feel happy about that, but it isn’t the same fury as when she learned about Killian.

“You didn’t really mean that, did you? Before?”

Regina turns to face Emma. “Mean what?”

“About —”  Emma seems to struggle with it.  “Everything.  Caring about my well-being and all that.”

“Yes,” Regina says. “However I feel about what happened between us the other night, and I’m still undecided about that, you’re important to both Henry and myself.”

For the first time all day that Regina remembers, Emma smiles.  Then she grabs Regina by both arms and pulls her into a tight hug. Regina sighs and then gently rests her hands on Emma’s waist.  “I think maybe August was wrong about you after all.”

Then she pulls away and heads for the car.  “You still coming?”

Regina watches her walk away like her feet are lighter than air.  All the drama seems to be over for now, and she hopes that means—

“Were you looking at my ass just now?”

Regina blinks and looks up.  Emma is standing next to the car with an unreadable expression on her face.  This Emma is so much like hers, but the sudden departure of her good mood tells Regina that this Emma is the one she’s been looking for. She scoffs.  “I was watching you walk away. I’ve always derived a great deal of pleasure from watching you leave my presence.”

“I would hope so,” Emma says.

“The other you wouldn’t have minded so much,” Regina replies.

“The other you would have been looking at my ass, so pot meet kettle.”

Touché.  “What was all this about?  Why here?”

Emma looks weary.  “I was fighting for my life long before I came to Maine, Regina.  Been fighting since I was a little kid in the orphanage.  The only thing different now is the fights have gotten weirder.  Part of me feels like I’ve earned a break, a little safety and stability.  This Emma, she had that.”

“I’m not sure how I helped.”

“She was about to lose all of that.  Like you said, she would’ve lost everything if she’d sided with August.  What you told her outside, and then in Jefferson’s living room, it gave her just enough hope to choose differently.  The other Regina, she still had such a bug up her ass about them sleeping together, she probably would have blown it.”

Regina raised an eyebrow.  “I highly doubt that.”

“You were sent here, weren’t you?” Emma pointed out as that familiar blue light shone from her chest.  With a smirk, she vanishes.

As the world fades around Regina as well, she hopes for stability of her own.  After today’s relatively normal setting, she wouldn’t mind if the next stop is in Storybrooke too.

Maybe then she’ll get to drive her car again.

 


	9. Lesbrarian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [lesbrarian](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbrarian/pseuds/lesbrarian)!

The first thing Regina notices about this new world is that it is colorful in a way the others hadn't been. Most of the other—worlds? realms? realities?—settings have had a muted presence, dark around the edges and tinged with unease. But this one is nothing like that. It's not just that the colors are vivid, it's that they're _warm_. She feels almost instantly content and comfortable; a sensation she has rarely—if ever—had in at least the last thirty years.

 

The second thing she notices is that she’s in a library. She’s fairly certain it looks almost exactly like the inside of the Storybrooke Free Public Library. Or, well, what she assumes it could look like if it were actually a place that people came to for books or brought their children to storytimes, or where community events could be hosted that didn’t involve pushing people out of the clock tower or locking them up in the basement. A quick glance around what she can see of this room only reinforces this idea, because if that’s not Belle behind the circulation desk, then she must have a twin no one’s heard about before. If Regina’s being honest with herself, she also has to admit that a library is one of the very last places she expected to find herself in regards to Emma Swan.

 

“What, you think I don’t _read_?” comes the familiar voice from behind her.

 

 _That was remarkably easy_ , Regina thinks, the surprise at being ambushed for once merely amusing her instead of making her jump in fear. _Must be something about this world_. When Regina turns to face her, she even has the decency to almost consider looking sheepish at Emma’s question. But there’s something to be said for muscle memory and instinct, because she can’t help rolling her eyes.

 

“Of course I know you read, Miss Swan. Would we even be here now if you hadn’t at least perused Henry’s book once or twice?”

 

“Probably not,” Emma concedes.

 

It’s then that Regina realizes (and she’s not even sure how she can tell, exactly) that this Emma is her—no, the _real_ Emma. (Not hers, nothing about Emma Swan is _hers_ , even if her hand is still tingling from where Emma’s fingers brushed— _gentlysogently_ —against her knuckles). It’s this mission. The realm jumping is making her head spin, muddling things. _That has to be the only explanation, doesn’t it?_

 

She hasn’t caught up to Emma this early on yet, and it would be making her nervous if she didn’t feel so strangely mellow.

 

“I don’t know why we’re together already either,” Emma offers.

 

The turn of phrase, though probably unintentional, does not go unnoticed by Regina. However, it does beg a very vital question. “Can you read my mind?” she asks.

 

Emma shrugs. “Not exactly. It’s more of a feeling; like a sixth sense?”

 

Regina just hums noncommittally in response.

 

“And hey, if you’re worried that this is some sort of huge privacy violation, I’d say it’s only fair! You’ve been inside _my_ head this entire time.”

 

Regina nods. “You do make a valid point.”

 

“In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I think you’re very literally inside it right now.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean look around you. Is ‘Emma’s Trip to York Beach’ the title of any book you’ve ever seen on a best-seller list?” she asks, pulling a book at random from a shelf labeled ‘Vacations - Maine’.

 

“Certainly not one of any importance,” Regina replies, the jibe feeling familiar in an oddly comforting way. “Here, let me see it,” she adds, holding her hand out for the book.

 

It looks like the picture books she used to read to Henry, she notices as she flips slowly through the pages. The art has a soft, whimsical feel; watercolors, probably. She stops when she reaches the two page spread in the center of the book. None of the pages have any text, and the illustrations seem postcard-ready, full of summer warmth but somehow without the tacky souvenir appearance.

 

( _“Wordless picture books are becoming popular,”_ she thinks she remembers Belle telling her once).

 

And while all of them are lovely, it's this central one that she keeps coming back to. In the center of the drawing is a little girl—probably about three years old, Regina thinks—standing at the water's edge, both feet buried in water and sand. Her arms are somewhere between at her sides and in the air (in the left hand, there's a shell), as if the illustrator caught the girl mid-step into the water. The look of surprise and glee is framed by unruly blonde hair, bleached paler than usual from a summer most likely spent outdoors. Something about the picture triggers a half-remembered quote— “ _and maggie discovered a shell that sang/so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles”_ —and Regina smiles, thinking of nights spent by the fire with a book of poetry in one hand, and an infant Henry cradled, sleeping, in her other arm.

 

But it's that expression on the child's face that Regina can't stop staring at. It's the same one she saw so often on Henry's face: covered in paint when they'd made a mural together; half-hidden under a pile of leaves; bundled up in his jacket the first time he played in the snow. But she's never ever, not once, seen Emma look anything like that in the two years since she's known her. She's seen her hiding from imagined monsters, or obstinate on the porch of the mansion, eyes ready for a challenge. She's even seen her smiling triumphantly, but never like this.

 

"I'd never been to the ocean before," Emma says, breaking Regina from her trance.

 

"No?" Regina replies, closing the book and turning to face Emma.

 

"Nuh uh. The family—the Swans—they took me one day that summer. I don't remember it much, really. Just that the sand didn't feel like the sand in the box at the daycare. And the water!"

 

"The water?"

 

Emma shrugs. "I don't know, exactly. It was just... _big_ , I guess."

 

Regina can't help the small quirk of her lips. "It certainly is that."

 

Emma doesn’t respond, just puts the book back in its place before walking away, disappearing between two rows of shelves. Regina wants to ask her more, but when she finally catches up to where she saw Emma go, there’s no one there.

 

“Miss Sw—Emma?” She calls, her voice sounding louder now that she’s the only one speaking. When she doesn’t receive a response, she tries again, this time just a little bit louder.

 

“Emma?” she calls for the fourth time.

 

“I think she wants you to do this part by yourself, Mom.”

 

Regina whirls around, not expecting that voice at all. “Henry? What on earth are you doing here?”

 

Because this is supposed be her quest; her little boy is supposed to be back there, safe, keeping watch over her unconscious form (and Emma’s, too. She remembers the look on his face, how the last thing she saw before she went under was how he held both her hand and Emma’s tightly in his own).

 

“Uhhh, reading a book?” he replies, making himself comfortable in the overstuffed chair she could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago.

 

Regina quells the urge to reprimand him for his tone, because really, all she feels is an overwhelming adoration. And for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, she feels it coming back from him, too. Deep down, she knows it’s probably just a side effect of this world’s peacefulness, but she’s too pleased to care. She’s not surprised when she senses the prick of tears behind her eyes, though. And she’s not letting go of how wonderful this is.

 

“Does Emma know you’re reading it?”

 

“Definitely,” he responds in a tone that implies the exact opposite.

 

“May I see the book, Henry?” she asks, moving to stand beside him, tempted—so tempted—to brush back the hair that’s falling, unkempt, into his eyes.

 

He hands it over without protest, which is absolutely proof for Regina that this world is very different from the real one. Even so, she’s not quite ready yet to understand what it means that she’s getting a moment like _this_ inside of _Emma’s_ mind. When she can still hear _“he’s not; he’s mine!”_ and see Emma’s possessive hold on Henry’s shoulders, daring Regina to cross her. And yet.

 

This time, the book she holds is a little bit thicker, more similar in style to the ones she’d gotten for a seven year old Henry, with short chapters and black and white illustrations every few pages, made to look like a diary.

 

The first page she flips to is a chapter labeled ‘I Went to the Mall of America!’ with references to an indoor amusement park called Camp Snoopy, and how her foster parents had given her a real allowance (five whole dollars!), just like the other kids in her class. Regina can’t help but start to smile when she reads about Emma and her friend from school getting drenched on the log flume ride and buying matching tee shirts from one of the mall kiosks to have something dry to wear.

 

A few more chapters in, and the tone has changed, the writing less childish, but no less enthusiastic.

 

This time, it’s Emma’s description of a stolen food picnic on a hill with a girl named after a flower that makes Regina feel a rush of affection. It’s as if with every new page, she can _feel_ how Emma felt. What it was like to have a full stomach for the first time in a while. What it was like to have a giggle fit with a brand new friend who drew a star on your wrist while grinning and promising friendship forever. Regina can feel it literally warming her heart, and it’s somehow not as unpleasant as she would have imagined.

 

When she finally looks up from this book and returns it to its shelf—’Minnesota - Edina Middle School Friends to Minnesota - Lily’—she notices that Henry is gone. Out in the real world, she would be worried that she’d let him down once again, but here, she can sense his reassurance, can sense that everything might just turn out okay. Optimism is weird. She’s not sure she actually likes it. In fact, she’s very nearly positive that anywhere else, she’d be terrified.

 

Instead, though, she leaves what she’s realized is the children’s area of the library, and makes her way to the young adult section. Here, where she expects the equivalent section in her own mind’s library would be full of imposing greys and blacks, she finds that there is still bright, welcoming color. She pulls a book from the shelf nearest to her—’Seventeen - Family’—and opens to the final chapter.

 

_Yeah, I know, it’s kinda cheesy. Going to a carnival with my foster mom on a Saturday probably won’t be the highest point of my high school social life, but honestly, when you move around as much as I do, you don’t expect to have much of a social life. But look, I don’t want your pity. I don’t need anyone’s pity. I’m just. Here for this, you know? Enjoying what life is giving me right now, because it sure as shit could chew me up in a second and spit me back out on the street. And I highly doubt my stomach is ready to go back to a Pop Tart heavy diet anytime soon. So yeah, I’m going to spend the day with my foster mom. Big deal._

 

“Language, Miss Swan,” Regina mutters softly to herself as she turns the page, skipping ahead to the carnival scene.

 

_“What do I do, help!”_

_“Don’t look at me, you’re driving!”_

_Okay seriously, Ingrid is absolutely not helping me. No one ever actually wins these things, do they? With the claw and stuff?_

_“I can’t do it!”_

_“Okay, okay! Concentrate.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“Trust your instincts, and .. let ‘er rip!"_

_It is, in fact, actually truly possible to win something on one of those machines. It’s just a plastic ring, but I feel super accomplished._

 

There it is again, that strange warmth making her heart swell. It’s almost equally as off-putting as it is pleasant. But whatever she feels now doesn’t prepare her for the next scene that she reads.

 

_“It’s why you’re crying.”_

_“No! You couldn’t be more wrong.”_

_“Then what is it?”_

_“I’m filling out the paperwork to adopt you. We’re going to be a family!”_

_“...Are you serious?”_

_“I know that it’s a big leap, and you may not look at me as a mother. I know how hard that is, but I .. I promise that I will be the best big sister that you could ever hope for.”_

_“I love you.”_

 

It’s not until she gets to that last line of dialogue (the last line in the book), that she realizes there’s a small tear making its way down one cheek. The emotion she’s feeling is too much; she feels about to burst with it. It’s foreign to her, but she knows exactly what it is.

 

Happiness.

 

These books she’s been reading, this library, it’s a collection of Emma’s happiest memories. Of all the worlds she’s met Emma in since taking the potion, this one feels the most vulnerable. To be happy like this, so utterly and truly, is to be free. Regina isn’t sure if she’s ever felt this way. And now she isn’t sure she wants to let go of it.

 

“Aw, you care about me, don’t you?” Emma smirks knowingly as she appears suddenly beside Regina once again.

 

Regina wipes quickly at her cheek in an attempt to disguise it as merely scratching a phantom itch, then steels her face into what she hopes is a neutral expression.

 

“No. No, I absolutely do not, Miss Swan.”

  
_Yes, I do._   _I don’t know why, but I think I do_. It’s the last thing Regina remembers thinking before she feels the familiar tug of magic, and is pulled into a new realm.


	10. Undermybreath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [undermybreath](http://archiveofourown.org/users/undermybreath/pseuds/undermybreath)!

When the new world comes into focus, like a silhouette slowly emerging through heavy mist, it is in stark contrast to the library she found herself in just a moment ago.

 

Gone are the colors, the warmth and, she finds, Emma’s presence. The realization tugs and pulls at  _ something  _ within her, like a needy child, and she scoffs to herself.  _ Honestly _ . Whatever vibrancy Emma’s happiness had briefly brought along with it, Regina does not need. Enjoy while it lasts, perhaps, but no, she does not  _ need _ . Regina has Henry and while the world he paints for her has had its colors dulled a bit recently, he is still the only master of light and dark in her life.

Turning to observe her surroundings further all she finds are tall trees with long branches that sway in the wind, creaking. Some of them, she thinks, almost appear to be reaching for her; like bony contorted fingers, they claw at Regina where she stands.

 

It’s instantaneous the way her already—always,  _ always _ —straight spine becomes just a little straighter. Images flash before her, rapid-fire, of Mother. Mother observing her with a sneer as she rides  _ so unlike a lady,  _ Mother’s dry cool lips against her cheek and  _ you will be Queen. _ Mother with a glowing red heart in her hands and—

 

“Regina!” Voices carry through the darkness and before she has time to really react, Snow is approaching, flashlight in right hand and a phone in the other. David is not far behind, looking only slightly less frantic than his wife.

 

“Regina!” Snow says again, halting her hand’s movement right before it touches Regina’s arm. “Have you found her?”

 

Regina assumes she means Emma and struggles to suppress the eye-roll because, obviously, she has not. She’s standing alone in what she realizes now must be this world’s version of Storybrooke’s forest.

 

However, Snow’s looking at her with such need in her eyes, such hopefulness, that she can’t quite bring herself to respond with anything other than a curt, “no.”

 

“Oh David,” Snow breathes, and he immediately reaches for her; strong arms pulling her in, a quick kiss to her temple. “It’s been hours now.”

 

Regina looks away, focusing on a few dried leaves being highlighted by the flashlight, rather than the embrace being shared. Something about Snow and her worrying about a missing child hits a little too close to home and though she’s loathe to admit it, would never ever say it out loud, Regina aches for her. It’s faint, and it’s buried under the weight of a very complex history, but it’s there nonetheless.

 

Regina knows what it’s like to be the parent pacing; worried,  _ powerless _ . Except that when her child was missing, she had no one. No calming touches or gentle arms wrapping themselves around her; a woman suddenly turned rabbit-hearted girl.

 

And that was ultimately Snow’s fault.

 

Still, if Emma’s missing it will be Regina’s mission to find her. Perhaps this universe has put a very literal spin on things? Maybe all she needs to do is actually physically locate Emma? She clears her throat and Snow flinches at the sound. Her big eyes immediately find Regina’s again and she presses on, worried yet so determined. “What do we do?”

 

Regina begins to walk and Snow follows, wordlessly. She’s struggling a bit to keep pace and Regina pretends not to notice, striding through the darkness like she might just indeed be the biggest monster they could ever run into out here.

 

“Walk me through it again,” she says. “When did you last see her?”

 

“At our apartment. We were—David and I—” Snow hesitates for a second and Regina rolls her eyes.

 

“Oh for God’s sake, just spit it out. Time’s not standing still anymore. People do  _ age _ these days.”

 

“She was talking about leaving.”

 

Regina comes to an abrupt halt and Snow almost walks right into her, but manages to catch herself just in time. “What?” she hisses, and the sheer frustration she feels catches her off-guard. If anything, Regina would’ve expected to feel a sense of relief—isn’t this what she’s always wanted?—but instead, all she can think about is Henry, devastated. Henry being left behind. Or worse, Henry running off again, desperate for some kind of connection with the woman who had given him up all those years ago.

 

She loves Henry. She loves him so much it physically hurts sometimes, the feeling settling like a bowling ball in her stomach when she remembers that even though they are family, his genetic code is different. And that maybe this will  _ matter _ . And sometimes, when she listens to Emma and Henry talk, she wonders if their conversations will one day be colored by it and she won’t see the nuances—won’t understand them—because her code is different.

 

Some things scare her more than Mother. Even more than death itself.

 

“She—she left and we haven’t been able to get in touch with her since,” Snow continues. David has once again caught up with them and is placing a supportive hand on Snow’s lower back.

 

“And since the locator spell didn’t work…” he says, and turns his head so he can look at Snow before facing Regina again. “Do you think she’s already crossed the town line?”

 

He’s trying to keep it together, trying to sound assertive and calm, but the way he’s watching Regina, with pleading eyes like he’s waiting for her to assuage him of his worry, gives him away. He’s just a concerned father now, she realizes. Not  _ Charming _ , not the ever so valiant prince that would slay dragons and swing his sword at whatever beast that would appear, so self-righteous in his crusades against evil.

 

In the dark forest he’s just a father and Snow is just a mother and Regina is…

 

“Not necessarily.” She runs her fingers through her hair; it’s beginning to frizz from the mist surrounding them. She knows that there are ways around being found, even by magic, and wonders if Emma in this universe would ever become desperate enough to approach Gold. “I will need to gather a few things from my vault and some books from home. I’ll meet you at your apartment.”

 

Neither Snow nor David answer, but David at least acknowledges her statement with a slight nod just before she’s engulfed by purple smoke.

 

* * *

 

When Regina appears in the hallway her first instinct is to run up the stairs and check on Henry, because the house is dark and eerily quiet and maybe if he’s heard that Emma’s missing—that she  _ left _ —maybe he’s also—

 

“He’s with Neal.”

 

Regina jumps at the sound of Emma’s voice coming from behind her. She’s standing, leaning casually against the doorframe, half hidden in the shadows, holding a tumbler filled with what Regina can only assume is her whiskey. The ice in the glass makes a clinking sound as she slowly swirls it, focusing intently on the small cubes. The way the shadows play across her face hollows it out; her cheekbones harshly protrude and dark circles are even more pronounced under unseeing eyes than Regina thinks she’s ever witnessed before. Emma looks tired. And ill.

 

“Of course,” Regina answers, and takes a few steps in Emma’s direction. “Because a  _ responsible _ parent at least makes sure to leave their child in the presence of someone, before they run away.”

 

Emma doesn’t respond at first, just continues to swirl the ice around, but her shoulders slump and then she lets out a sigh. “Yeah.”

 

_ Wait. What? _

 

“That’s it?” Regina raises both eyebrows. Having half expected a feisty response, she’s genuinely surprised at Emma’s quiet demeanor and lack of…spirit.

 

Emma just shrugs and moves into the study.

 

Regina follows and places herself on the small couch across from her, the scene strikingly familiar to their very first meeting almost two years prior. Much like the happiness of the library, something about the absolute sense of defeat that radiates off of Emma tugs and pulls at something within Regina and the next words out of her mouth are soft-spoken, gentle, even. “Your parents are both out there, looking for you.”

 

Emma leans back, her head resting on the back of the sofa, eyes closed as an exasperated puff of breath leaves her mouth. She’s still swirling that damn tumbler and it’s beginning to grate on Regina’s nerves. “I know. I just—”

 

“They assumed you’d already left town.”

 

Emma’s eyes open now, but instead of looking at Regina she’s focusing on something above. Perhaps a non-existent crack in the ceiling. “Yeah. Look, I just needed to buy myself some time, okay?” She sits up straight again. Her elbows are resting on her knees and she’s holding the glass with both hands now, her thumb absentmindedly stroking the rim as she continues. “I knew they’d come looking, that they’d probably use some locator spell or whatever, and if they thought I’d left town then maybe…”

 

“That would buy you a few hours before they’d realize you were here?” Regina asks. Emma scoffs and Regina adds, “What?”

 

“I came here because I know you’ve put enough protective spells on this place to keep any and all magic out, Regina. But if you’re worried about them running over, don’t be. You know this is pretty much the last place they’d ever think to look.”

 

“Oh.” She’s not quite sure why that notion seems to deflate her just a bit, nor does she care to examine it further, but she realizes that she knows nothing about what kind of relationship she and Emma have in this world. She’d just met Snow and David and assumed they were…close? That maybe Emma was someone important to her. Not that  _ she’d _ ever—

 

“I know I fucked up.” Emma continues. She’s quiet and so, so careful now but for the first time, her eyes find Regina’s.

 

There’s a moment of silence that quickly transforms itself into a physical weight on Regina’s shoulders. Emma is seeking her out, seemingly looking for reassurance that she has no way of knowing how to give. “I feel like this conversation requires a drink.” Regina instead says, standing and turning to make her way towards the decanter with amber liquid.

 

A lopsided grin spreads across Emma’s face and the response that follows is self-deprecating in its delivery. “Yeah, probably.” She shrugs. “And I could do with a re-fill anyway.”

 

Regina eyes her for a few seconds before reaching out and grabbing the glass offered up to her. She realizes she doesn’t know how much Emma’s already had to drink, but she doesn’t appear overly intoxicated. Her words come out clear, not stained by whiskey.  “Mmm.” She nods. When she reaches the small table, back to Emma where she sits on the sofa, she finds she suddenly can’t help herself, can’t resist poking her fingers into what’s apparently an open wound and wiggling it around a bit. “So you’re apologizing. This seems like quite the momentous occasion.”

 

Regina can hear Emma shift and can imagine how uncomfortable this whole thing is making her. It leaves Regina feeling less fulfilled than she’d hoped. In fact, it irks her. Why is she finding it harder and harder to be angry with Emma, this woman who’d waltzed her way into Regina’s life and somehow quite effortlessly turned everything she’d worked so hard for into ruins?

 

“Right,” Emma says, hand coming up to awkwardly rub the back of her neck as Regina sits down again and reaches across the coffee table to hand Emma her drink. 

 

Their fingers brush against one another and linger. Something stirs in the back of Regina’s mind—a subconscious memory attempting to make itself known—and suddenly she  _ knows _ . In this world, Emma is most definitely important. And along with that realization also comes one of anger and hurt. Emma is important. So important that it matters a great deal that she  _ fucked up _ .

 

“I love you, you know.”

 

The words are nothing but a whisper but Regina can hear them, loud and clear. The glass on its way to her mouth stops moving and she realizes she’s frozen, can’t move or even figure out a response, and Emma notices too because her whole body tenses up and she takes a quick swig of the whiskey. Maybe she’s hoping she can swallow that particular admission right back down with it.

 

“Emma.” Regina breathes, because  _ oh God _ this is—

 

“I know, I know.” she sighs, and rubs her forehead with her left hand. “But I do, and I just—I’m sorry that I can’t be what you deserve.”

 

There are tears forming in her eyes now and Regina is struggling because there is this very real sense of panic that is washing over her. Because Emma is so upset and genuine in her sorrow and she’s  _ not what Regina deserves _ and—

 

“What?”

 

“I can’t do it.” Emma pushes forward, through the tears. “I can’t be what you all want me to be.”

She can’t explain it, but somehow Regina finds herself placing her tumbler on the coffee table and then herself next to Emma on the sofa. Emma who is wringing her hands in her lap now, intently focused on the way her thumb keeps pushing at one of her knuckles.

 

“I can’t be the hero. I can’t be this fucking perfect princess and knight in shining armor and savior and—I never asked for this. I never asked for any of it!”

 

It’s like muscle memory taking over, something so ingrained in Regina— _ this _ world’s Regina—that she doesn’t even hesitate before she carefully places an arm around Emma’s shaking frame and guides her towards her; Emma’s head comes to rest on Regina’s shoulder as she rubs soothing circles on her back.

 

Perfect princess.  _ Perfect daughter _ .

 

Knight in shining armor.   _ Adoring wife _ .

 

Savior.  _ Queen _ .

 

Regina closes her eyes, breathes in the scent of Emma’s hair and places a kiss on the top of her head. “I never wanted to be Queen either,” she whispers into the blonde curls and Emma stills beneath her, wipes some snot on her sleeve. “And you were perhaps the first person who didn’t view me as that. Who just saw me as…Regina.” She draws in a shaky breath because those words are not just about comforting an upset Emma; those words are  _ true _ in a way that has Regina’s pulse speeding up just a little. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you weren’t enough.”

 

She’s holding Emma’s tear-stained face in her hands now and maybe it’s this world’s Regina coming through again but there is something so intoxicating about the way Emma is looking at her—like she’s  _ important _ and like  _ she matters _ and like  _ this is everything _ —that she can’t resist brushing her lips against hers. They are warm and soft and taste of salt. Emma sighs and then she melts into it, her hands placing themselves on Regina’s thighs.

 

“You’re Emma,” she whispers, as they break the kiss, their foreheads touching and breaths mingling. “I don’t need you to be anything other than that.” She smiles. “You’re enough.”

 

“Wow,” she hears from behind her. “I don’t know what I was expecting but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it.” Emma, the  _ frustrating version _ , has appeared and is looking so damned smug about the whole thing that Regina in this moment really can’t remember why she’d ever let herself feel dizzy from a single kiss from this woman.

 

“Don’t kid yourself, Miss Swan. We all do what me must.”

 

_ To survive  _ remains unspoken, as Regina’s vision blurs and she leaves this world behind.


	11. Bladeddarkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [bladeddarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BladedDarkness/pseuds/BladedDarkness)!

It’s the peacefulness of the moment that rouses her; she isn’t used to the quiet. Regina wakes on her side in bed, staring at the exposed-brick wall. It takes a moment for her to realize that she’s in the loft room of the Charmings’ apartment.

 

A sleepy grunt draws her attention to the lump beside her. There’s the faintest brush of questing fingers against her legs, the rough pads of someone’s fingers touching her thigh.

 

Her eyes are squinted nearly shut as she pulls the sheet down slowly, half-fearful, half-hopeful —

 

It’s not Emma.

 

It’s also neither David nor Snow, which is all the better for Emma really, because if her head had put Regina in their bed with either of them, she would make her dearly regret it.

 

It is a man, though she can’t see his face — it’s buried in the pillows underneath him and his profile is hidden behind dark brown hair. There’s a trace of dark stubble on his cheeks and chin, just barely there. And then he shifts, and her heart stops.

 

_ Daniel. _

 

He’s recognizable even if certain things about him are off: his brow is a bit higher than she remembers, his jaw too square, his nose wider than it should be. It’s as if someone has been told of his appearance and attempted to recreate it, but didn’t quite get it right. There’s an ache inside her that recognizes him regardless, and Regina is not sure if it’s from the other Regina she’s inhabiting or her own connection with Daniel.

 

Regina reaches out with trembling fingers, her hand twisting into the sheet between them instead of touching him like she so desperately desires. Her other hand is over her mouth, and she’s not surprised her harsh breathing doesn’t wake him. Daniel had never been a light sleeper.

 

She had found him asleep before, hidden in the hayloft in the barn or reclined under the tree on Firefly Hill, had even fallen asleep next to him after some of her mother’s more grueling punishments. He had always seemed at ease with all the natural noises around that had startled her awake.

 

Regina watches him greedily, soaking in the comfort his presence provides her. He stirs eventually, mouth crinkling in that familiar way as he leans up for a kiss before sliding from the bed. If Daniel notices her hesitance, he gives Regina space to work through whatever is bothering her.

 

Daniel looks strange in the clothes of this land. A t-shirt and boxers don’t suit him and there’s only a trace scent of the stables on him, hidden behind the unmistakable scent of fabric softener. It reminds her of twenty-eight years ago, of waking up to a new world of fashion and trends (and waking up  _ alone _ ). Nothing seemed to fit right back then, even when it was tailored to Regina perfectly.

 

She has been in and out of Snow’s apartment many times over the years, always when the woman was absent and Regina’s boredom had reached its peak. She took small enjoyment from moving Snow’s knick knacks around just enough to be disconcerting. The general decorating scheme of the apartment has never appealed to Regina — too chintzy, too  _ Snow _ — but now these touches have been replaced with items more suited to Regina’s taste. The art on the wall has changed, the shelves contain far more books than trinkets; she even spots her horse sculpture on top of the dresser.

 

The shower is running now and despite the oddness of it all, she moves instinctively to start the coffee and breakfast after dressing. She’s just finished plating an omelet when she hears the front door slam, and then arms wrap around her waist; she stiffens because this embrace is far more familiar than a lifetime ago.

 

“Henry,” she breathes, turning around and hugging him, scarcely able to believe that she can be lucky enough to have both of them, Henry and Daniel — but then this is Emma’s doing, is it not? It would be so easy to forget that, even after being propelled through so many of her fantasy worlds. She hardly cares when  _ Daniel _ is the one beside her, after all.

 

Henry’s hair is just as soft as Regina remembers, and he’s already dressed in his school uniform, scarf wrapped around his neck. There’s no fear or cool neutrality hiding his anger, and he clings to her like he used to not that long ago, when he was younger, before Emma and the curse and the Evil Queen.

 

Daniel approaches with a warm smile and his stubble shaved away, ruffling Henry’s hair and kissing Regina’s cheek. It feels so  _ familial, _ the three of them sitting down to breakfast, Henry and Daniel laughing and joking as she watches on, contentedness curling about her warmly. Daniel still works at the stables (of course he does, how could he not? She can’t imagine otherwise), and he gives Henry a lift to school.

 

She’s humming quietly as she steps into her office, but the familiar clearing of a throat strikes ice in her belly before she even looks up.

 

_ No. _

 

Cora sits behind Regina’s desk, eyebrow raised. “You’re late, darling,” she says delicately, but there’s a sharpness behind it. Disapproval. There’s a professional photo of Henry on the desk, face solemn and eyes hard, but it faces the doorway instead of where Cora can see it. Regina swallows down bile.

 

The rest of the day is nerve wracking in a way she has not felt since shoving her mother through the mirror. Cora keeps her close, Regina serving as some odd mix of secretary and assistant, performing menial tasks she has rarely done herself before. Cora’s watchfulness is far more intrusive than the eyes of the kingdom even at the height of Regina’s reign.

 

It’s painfully clear who is in charge of  _ this _ Storybrooke.

 

The relief that Regina feels as she leaves her own office (her mother’s office? The office that used to be her own?) late that afternoon leaves her shaking, hurrying back to an apartment that her mind recognizes as both her own and her enemy’s. The apartment is empty, but after a day of being around her mother, it’s exactly what she needs, for at least a little while.

 

In her childhood, she sought out her father for comfort after extended periods of time with her mother. Later, she would find the same calming influence in Daniel as well. It was not until after Cora murdered him that she grew to appreciate the quiet of solitude, could take a moment for herself and feel no inclination to seek solace in the presence of another.

 

She has just finished stirring dinner on the stove when Henry slams into her, like he hasn’t done in  _ years, _ and he sniffles. There’s something so lost in his eyes when they meet hers, but shame clouds them over quickly. It’s a look that has no place on his face, not when he is just a mere ten years old (not when she was just ten years old, too).

 

“I wish you had adopted me instead of  _ her, _ ” Henry mutters, voice muffled against her shoulder, and it all falls into sickening place. She vainly tries to swallow down the bitter lump in her throat because  _ her son _ is choosing her over someone else.

 

But this isn’t Henry, not truly, and the words sting as much as they are a salve to the wounds that his rejection has inflicted over the last few years. Her mind whispers traitorously that being chosen over her mother means very little. This is the opposite of what she wanted for Henry.

 

There’s the sound of a key turning in the lock as they pull apart. Regina expects it to be Daniel, but then she sees the skeleton key.

 

Henry cringes in Cora’s presence, and it makes Regina’s stomach turn, reminded of her father and herself all at once.

 

“Say goodnight, Henry. Regina.” Cora’s words are sweet, as is her tone, but her eyes are dangerous, even without the threatening press of magic coiling about Regina.

 

She pulls him closer, smelling his familiar scent. Henry leans into the hug, desperate for the affection in the way that Regina herself had been — still is, really.

 

Regina shudders as her mother’s voice rings in her ears, Cora’s cold smile bringing forth a thousand memories. It makes Regina’s head feel hazy, heavy, too many emotions welling up in her. Anger, loathing, fear, resentment, sorrow, longing, and that twisted, desperate, yearning love that Regina has tried for year to sever but that she has never been able to shake. Cora will always be her mother.

 

Just like Regina will always be Henry’s.

 

Just like, perhaps, Emma will always be Henry’s mother from now on, as well. It’s too late for otherwise at this point, Regina imagines. Regina has been the one to raise and care for him — even in this dream world of Emma’s. Emma may be ten years too late in reality, but the future is so uncertain.

 

The thought of raising Henry alongside Emma no longer fills her with anger and resentment. Instead, she feels almost resigned and an ember of something unidentifiable burns within her. Hope, perhaps, she thinks, before squashing the feeling as ruthlessly as she can. Cora has always possessed the preternatural sense for when Regina gives into her softer emotions.

 

* * *

 

“Are you happy?” Henry asks her the next afternoon. “I can never tell.” He’s been prodding all day, furtively alluding to a curse she shouldn’t remember or believe in. Part of her is thrilled to be his ally in this, but another part of her whispers that she has both Henry and Daniel here, and that Cora’s power is somewhat limited.

 

Could she be happy in this fantasy world Emma has built, where Regina may not have  _ won _ but she certainly hasn’t seemed to have lost either?

 

She looks at his unhappy face, at the tension that comes with proximity to Cora and the weight of her demands, and she has her answer.

 

She takes a deep breath.

 

“Let’s break the curse, Henry.” He looks at her with so much wonder that Regina again feels like his mother, like she can do anything for her little prince, and so she swallows down the last shred of doubt. “We need to find your birth mother.”

 

She has always despised the fact that there irrationally exists a bus station just outside the borders of Storybrooke, in what to the outside world is the middle of nowhere yet is too close to her hidden domain for her own comfort. But now she is thankful that it allows them quick access to Boston (Emma is just a few hours away, her mind whispers traitorously).

 

Her mind whispers about Emma a lot these days.

 

She sighs and takes a deep breath, stepping towards the border. A raging headache pounds at her temples and she stumbles, but she keeps her grip firm in Henry’s hand.

 

He still crosses the town line without her, his fingers slipping from between hers, and she remembers too late that she is not the one to have cast the curse in this world Emma has created in her mind. She is bound to stay within the perimeter of the town just like the rest of the inhabitants.

  
Her son is once again out in the world by himself, set on bringing his birth mother home.


	12. Snarkingturtle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [snarkingturtle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkingturtle/pseuds/snarkingturtle).

Regina waits. She cleans the apartment to keep from panicking, giving Henry a two-hour head start before alerting anyone that he is ‘missing’. Cora arrives and berates her in tones hard and cold enough that Regina trembles in place, and Daniel comes home immediately, kissing Regina on the forehead before heading out to look.

“We’ll find him,” he promises, brushing hair away from her face with calloused fingers that are at once both foreign and familiar. “You stay here, in case he comes back.”

His thumb traces along her cheekbone, and Regina nods numbly. She looks at the unfamiliar lines around his eyes, his mouth, lines  _ her _ Daniel never grew old enough to get, laughter and and years and life, so much life.

“It’ll be all right,” he tells her, and kisses her, this one a real kiss that makes her lips tingle and toes curl, makes her heart wrench with everything that could have been but never was. “I love you,” he whispers, and Regina determinedly doesn’t think of an impending goodbye, of this loss she just gets to suffer again and again and again.

He leaves, and she is alone.

Regina paces in her apartment (Snow’s apartment), and remembers pacing in another house, another life. Remembers the echo of her heels in her entryway, remembers her hands trembling around a glass of water, remembers throwing it against the wall and watching it shatter all over the floor. Remembers looking out the kitchen window and watching it get darker and darker, feeling so anxious she thought she would be sick, eventually ending up on her knees in the downstairs bathroom and dry-heaving over the toilet thinking of all the things could have happened, how hurt he could be or the trouble he could have gotten into, all because he  _ hated  _ her, hated her so much he had to run, where  _ was  _ he,  _ wherewashewherewashewherewashe _ .

He had been fine. In that other world he had been fine but this isn’t that world and what if he’s  _ not _ , what if he’s—what if he—

What did she send him  _ into _ ? Regina shakes her head, clenching and unclenching her fists, trying to breathe and not really succeeding. When she hears the door open she spins so fast she almost makes herself dizzy.

“Look who I found,” Daniel says, and for a moment Regina thinks he somehow tracked down Henry and brought him home. Well. Not home. Here. But then Daniel opens the door a little wider, allowing a stoop-shouldered old man to follow him into the apartment. 

Everything in Regina flashes hot and then cold. “Daddy?” she whispers.

The man looks up at her and smiles. “Mija,” he says warmly. “How are you holding up?”

Everything goes dark.

* * *

She comes to lying on the bed, someone’s hand on her forehead and murmured voices hovering above her.

“ _ Still no word?” _

_ “Making herself sick with worry.” _

Regina’s eyes flutter open, and she fumbles herself into sitting even though it makes spots dance in front of her eyes. “Henry?” she mumbles, still not fully with it, and her father—her  _ father _ —rests his hand on her shoulder and eases her back so she’s leaning against the headrest. 

“Still nothing,” her father tells her. “But he’ll turn up. I promise.”

His voice has that familiar lilt, that gentleness and scratchiness that makes Regina’s breath hitch and hot tears press against her eyes. She fumbles for his hand, squeezes to reassure herself that he is here, solid and warm and real.

The last time she saw him her hand was in his chest, and he was falling, falling. 

“Daddy,” she says. “Daddy, I—”

But she stops, not sure what to say next. How to apologize to the father she never actually killed, not here, not in this world. _ (Daddy I don't know what to do.) _ Still, “Daddy,” she tries again, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door. Regina pushes herself out of bed as quickly as she can, lets Daniel steady her with a hold on her arm before she rushes forward to fling it open. Henry throws himself at her, arms tight around her waist and head leaning into her side. Her own arms encircle him almost as if on auto-pilot, chin comes to rest on the top of his head before he pulls away and no, no, she can't do this again, she  _ can't _ . 

But Henry's smiling. Grinning, really, so wide it takes up his whole face as he tilts his head up and beams. “I found her!” Henry says. “I found my mom!” and he’s still hugging her, still looking at her like she is his sun and moon and stars, so Regina just rests a hand on the top of his head and tries not to think of “ _ I found my real mom”, _ of slamming doors and angry words, so much loneliness on all sides. 

“You did it,” she tells him, making her best effort to smile back even though she can feel it waver on her face. “Oh honey, I’m so proud of you.” She smoothes his hair back, looks up at the Emma standing just a few feet away.

“Hi,” Emma says, tentative and shy, and Regina’s not sure if she wants to laugh or cry. 

“Hi,” she says back, when she feels like she has some semblance of a voice. “Thank you for bringing Henry home.” She pauses, and then, with her best smile, “How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted?”

* * *

“Look,” Emma says, shifting her weight and glancing around, “I should probably head out. It’s a long drive back to Boston, and it’s already really late…”

“Of course,” Regina agrees. That's not supposed to be her line, she’s supposed to be making Emma stay, not walking her down the hallway and to her car, arms folded against the cold and fighting against that voice in her head still trying to tell her that she could be happy here. Her mother is…her mother, but Regina thinks of “ _ you would have been enough” _ , and there’s an erratic thump of  _ maybe _ in her heart. She thinks of Daniel, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and kissing her hair, easy and comfortable and  _ good _ . Thinks of her father,  _ alive _ , bringing her a cup of tea and smiling at her, cupping her cheek with his palm and looking at her with love she never thought she’d see again (love she’s so so sure she doesn’t deserve). 

And she thinks of Henry. Henry who might not be hers, but who loves her, looks at her like she is his whole world, his everything. And he  _ could  _ be hers, she could find a way to make him hers. To make him  _ happy _ , even here, even in this. They could all be happy. Play the right games, make the right moves, and she could—she could have it all.

“Thanks for the drink,” Emma says, pulling Regina back into the here and now. Emma is fiddling with her car keys and hunching in her coat; she looks sad and a little lost, more than a little overwhelmed as she prepares to get in her car and go back to Boston alone.

Regina nods, then glances back, once, at the apartment. Pictures her father making hot chocolate and Daniel sitting with Henry on the couch and  _ wants _ , wants so much she thinks she might weep. Wants her father to tell his grandson familiar bedtime stories, smooth and well-worn around the edges, while she and Daniel do dishes together, flicking soap and laughing quietly. She wants Daniel's arms around her waist, kisses on her neck, behind her ear. Wants her father to hug her as he leaves, wants his easy, "I'll see you tomorrow, mija." Wants all of those tomorrows, stretching out and out and out in front of her, no goodbyes in sight.

And she could have it, she tells herself. She could let Emma get in that car and drive away, could grab her happy ending with both hands and never look back. She  _ could _ .

She could. Except Daniel is dead and her father is dead and the Henry sitting on that couch might love her but he isn’t her Henry. Isn’t the baby she rocked to sleep every night, the toddler who kissed her knee after she tripped over one of his sippy cups and hit the floor so hard she saw stars. Isn’t the five-year-old who tried to hide his vegetables in his napkin, the seven-year-old who drew her a new picture for the fridge every day after school. And yes, this Henry might never have shouted “I hate you!” and run from her touch while she tried not to fall to pieces in the kitchen, but he also never crawled into her bed during a thunderstorm, never spilled orange juice all over the white hall carpet trying to bring her breakfast in bed.

He’s Henry but he’s not, and she suddenly misses hers so much her soul aches with it.  _ I'm sorry _ , she thinks at the house behind her, at Daniel and Daddy and not-Henry and the future she can almost touch but they will never have.  _ Please forgive me. I'm sorry. _

“Emma wait,” Regina blurts, and Emma turns back, still holding the car door handle. “You can’t go.”

“I can’t?”

Regina shakes her head. “Henry needs you,” she whispers, throat thick with tears she refuses to cry. “He needs you to be a part of his life. You belong here, Emma. You need to stay.”  

“I…” Emma starts, and then she’s blinking, something in her eyes clearing and focusing until suddenly the Emma standing in front of Regina is  _ hers _ , is the Emma who fiercely promised “ _ she’s not dying” _ , who fell into another world for her. Regina feels a smile curve onto her lips even as tears prick her eyes.

“Hi,” she says to Emma, but Emma doesn’t react.

“Did you mean that?” Emma whispers. “About Henry needing me? Do you really believe that, or are you just trying to get me to break the curse?”

“I meant it,” Regina admits, and it’s painful but true. “I’m not saying it was inevitable, or that he never could have been happy without you in his life, but—now that you're here and a part of it, I can’t turn back the clock. And you can’t leave him again. He loves you. And you make him happier. You belong in his life now, whether I like it or not.” 

“Regina…” Emma breathes. Regina takes a few shaky steps forward until she is standing close enough that she can almost feel Emma’s breath on her cheek. 

“You’re not—you’re not actually the worst thing that could have happened,” Regina murmurs. This close she can smell the faint traces of Emma’s perfume, so different from what she usually wears, can see the quiver of Emma’s eyelashes, the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

“Thanks,” Emma says, and then Regina’s leaning forward and kissing her, tangling her fingers in Emma’s hair to pull her closer, one of Emma’s hands settling on Regina’s waist and the other fisting in her coat. It’s dizzying and electrifying and  _ finally _ , and when Emma abruptly jerks back and pulls away Regina just stands there, breathing stuttering. 

“I can’t,” Emma says, shaking her head and backing up until she bumps into the side of her car. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Emma,” Regina says, but Emma just jerks open her door, gets in and drives away so fast the tires screech. “Emma!” Regina shouts, but it’s too late, Emma is gone and Regina can feel this world begin to dissolve  around her while she screams her frustration.


	13. Lanoyee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [lanoyee](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lanoyee/pseuds/lanoyee).

**Chapter Thirteen: Lanoyee**

  
  


Loss and humiliation burn through her as the scene fades away into what she can only suppose will be yet another dream reality. Of course Miss Swan would reject her, of course she'd run away! Whatever possessed Regina to kiss the foolish woman, she doesn't know. 

 

She got caught up in the dream, that's it, and hey, maybe  _ Emma _ has feelings for  _ her _ — and no, there is no tell-tale flutter in her heart at the thought, there certainly is not — but she'd do well to remember that Emma — Miss Swan — has only ever been an unwelcome intruder in her life. 

 

(Never mind that she can still feel the way Emma kissed back, just for a small, perfect moment, and it hadn't feel so right since — )

 

No, she has no  _ love _ for Emma Swan, and most certainly that is a bullet dodged. And she might be in danger of questioning what exactly has her so upset, but she is already hurtling toward the next reality.

 

“That is  _ my _ seat.”

 

Regina blinks, surprised to hear herself speak. She's standing in Granny's diner, and in front of her is a familiar head full of blonde curls. Emma whirls her head around, and Regina is greeted with an utter lack of recognition. 

 

“Oh, sorry. I wasn't aware diner seats have owners,” says Emma, passive-aggression vibrant in her voice.

 

Of course, she makes no motion to give up the seat, because when has Emma ever ceded even an inch to Regina? She wants to yell and she wants to laugh, but she just smiles cordially. “Well, now you know. Better luck next time.”

 

Emma smiles back, but there's no conviction behind it. “I guess. Anyway, I'm just passing through, so no wor — ” 

 

In that moment, the little bell atop the door signals someone's entry. “Hey, mom!” Regina barely has time to turn around before Henry barrels toward her. He must be nine years old, she can tell from the particular gap in his front teeth glancing through his grin. Giving in to impulse, she pulls him into her arms and hugs him tight until he protests, squirming away.

 

As soon as she releases him, he notices Emma. His eyebrows furrow. “Who's that?” 

 

And Henry looks back at Emma, taking in the whole of her appearance, his frowning gaze lingering, as if the first seed of doubt is planted in his mind in exactly that moment. Regina grows frantic. She wants to take it back. She wants to brusquely grab Henry's arm and drag him out of the diner.

 

But Emma doesn't recognize them, and it's  _ wrong _ .

 

“Henry, it's not polite to talk over people in your company. Nor is it polite to stare.” She searches Emma's gaze, takes a smile out from her mayor repertoire. She clicks her tongue quietly to get the stale taste out of her mouth. “I'm sorry. Henry is a good boy, but still learning his manners. I'm Regina Mills, the mayor of this town. And you are?”

 

“Emma Swan.”

 

* * *

 

Once Regina gets her customary coffee, they leave the diner. Outside, Henry immediately starts talking animatedly, with a guileless trust he hasn't given her in over a year. “A new person, Mom! We never see anyone new in Storybrooke.” 

 

Regina bites her tongue. Bites her tongue and pushes down memories of all the little incidents when he'd remarked something like this. Of the time he asked her why he was taller than all the kids supposedly his age now, and the only one who was in first grade — and how he'd never asked again after she told him that some children just grow faster than others.

 

“I know, honey,” she replies. “The last one came here long before you were born.” 

 

“Really?” Henry looks up at her, all curiosity. “What were they like?”

 

“It was a father and a little boy, just like you.”

 

They go home to the mansion on Mifflin Street, and Regina sneaks surreptitious glances at Henry all the way there, watching for an unusual reaction, but there is none. Still, it is with trepidation that she walks up to her own front door, keys warm and slick in her sweaty hands as she fumbles to push them into the lock. 

 

The door gives way to her efforts and she steps into the entryway, which is as deserted as it always is. Henry wastes no time bounding up the stairs to his room while Regina finally determines that they're alone in the house. If Mother were here, the head of the house, she wouldn't waste any time until Regina was once more under her supervision.

 

No, it's just Regina, her son, and a house with too many rooms collecting too much dust. It's safe and it's empty, just the way Regina wanted it all those years ago. But she's never felt it the way she does now.

 

* * *

 

The next day is a Saturday. Regina and Henry decide to go for a walk in the park. It's sunny and warm outside, so Regina packs a small picnic on Henry's suggestion. They walk the same way they've always been going, meandering through the trees until they finally reach the small pond, where they linger and watch the ducks. 

 

“Nice day out, isn't it?”

 

Emma.

 

She has Henry's attention instantly. “Hey, Miss Swan! Are you going for a walk, too?”

 

“Yeah, kid, I am.” There's something open in Emma's smile for the first time. 

 

“How long will you stay in town? Any plans on that?” Regina really tries not to sound like  _ please go away _ . It seems to work, because Emma's expression doesn't change.

 

“I don't know exactly, but probably a few days, and then I'm on the road again.”

 

Henry butts in. “Would you like me to show you the sights?”

 

Emma's face lights up in a grin, and she reaches out to ruffle Henry's hair, before stopping, and retracting her hands. For a moment there she’d looked familiar, like she knows him, but now she's just someone who likes children smiling at one child among many. “Sure, kid. That'd be fun.”

 

* * *

 

Regina is by herself when she runs into Mary Margaret on Sunday. She's on the way into the grocery store, while Mary Margaret appears on her way out, two large brown paper bags in her arms. 

 

Seeing Regina, she stops. “Madame Mayor,” she says, bumping slightly into one of her bags while trying to nod her head. Mary Margaret, the school teacher, had often been a bit shy around Regina. She was a mousy thing in general, and had little in common with Snow White as Regina had known her at any stage of life that way.

 

“Miss Blanchard. Fancy seeing you here.” 

 

“Likewise.” Nice. Cordial. Absent, in a way. “I was hoping to see you, actually. I wanted to talk to you about...”

 

A rustling and footsteps next to them, and it's Emma Swan who is passing by with her own paper bag full of groceries. She pauses in her step. “Uh. Somehow I keep running into you.”

 

Emma notices Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret notices Emma, tilts her head and narrows her eyes, standing perfectly still for a moment.

 

And the moment passes. “Sorry, didn't want to interrupt. Have a nice day.” Emma walks on.

 

Regina watches her go until she reaches her glaringly yellow bug, then turns back to Mary Margaret. “Yes, what did you want to talk about?”

 

* * *

 

She's still not entirely done fuming when she enters the diner for lunch the next day. Henry's been melancholy, Mary Margaret says. Yes, his grades are good. He's the best student in class. But she's just worried, she says.  _ The nerve. _

 

An angry Regina stabs her salad with extra gusto and chews like millstones, and when she's done, all but stomps to the bathroom, where a sight greets her that almost makes her heart stop.

 

“Have you people any decency?” Her voice comes out in an unusually high pitch, which she'd be embarrassed by if she weren't so shocked. 

 

Emma shoves Ruby away, who grumbles in frustration. “Hey, you may be mayor, but you don't own this place.” 

 

“There are  _ children _ walking here!” Regina insists, her heart still pounding fast, the mental image of Emma entangled with the wolf girl against the bathroom wall burned into her brain. There's a big lump in her throat and her eyes burn a little and she doesn't know why. 

 

She tries to summon a glare, but Ruby is unimpressed. “But not now. I do know how to check these things.” 

 

“Of course you would.” Regina makes sure to sneer. “Go back to your work, Miss Lucas.”

 

Once Ruby leaves the scene with a glare, Emma pushes herself off the wall. “Look, I'm sorry about that. We just got into it, you know? A girl's gotta scratch that itch once in a while.”

 

Regina rounds in on her, doesn't even hesitate. “There are other ways to do that than making out in broad daylight, in public, like some kind of slut.”

 

She regrets this immediately. Because Emma's eyes narrow, and Regina fancies seeing them moisten, and she gets that set to her lips that is often the only indicator she's affected by anything at all. “Oh, fuck you,” shouts Emma, and all but flees.

 

Much later that same day, she kisses Henry goodnight and then goes to her study, where she pours herself a glass of wine before sitting down on the lavish sofa. Her large, lavish, empty sofa in her large, lavish, empty house. Her shoes make no sound on the carpet when she kicks them off. 

 

“It's all Emma's fault,” she murmurs to the wall, taking a sip. “Emma lies. Emma cheats. Emma took Henry away.” It's as empty as the echoing voice when she's further down the hall. 

 

And she definitely doesn't think of Ruby's lips on Emma's neck. Definitely,  _ definitely _ not about how, in Ruby's absence, she had wanted to push Emma right back up against that wall. She doesn't think about it until her wine glass shatters against the mantelpiece, creating a grotesque dark stain on the aged wood. 

 

But she doesn't have magic, which she forgot, so she has to clean up the mess by hand. She curses as she scrubs away at the stain, feeling like doom and gloom. Like everything is going wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

She is pretty sure she wasn't meant to scare Emma away. Part of her wanted to, but something about kneeling on the floor in front of a stained strip of prized wood forces her to be honest with herself, so she suddenly knows with full clarity that her desire to push Emma away was only a reaction to the desire to keep her near. 

 

Emma had disrupted her life, but her life had needed disrupting. Regina remembers Henry watching her, with curiosity and only mild trepidation, when she made the sleeping curse for David. Emma has forced her to be her true self, even around the person she loves the most, and it scared Regina to death. And now Emma  _ knows _ her and has rejected her, and it scares Regina even more.

 

But all of that pales in comparison of the prospect of going forward without Emma. Of doing all the work to come on her own, without the only person who keeps wanting to believe her, the one person who still makes Henry's face light up. The person who saved her baby, who saved Regina too.

 

It may be wretched and it may be pathetic, but in her heart she hopes that maybe some of that true love may one day be hers too.

 

It's already after dark, but then the days aren't long yet. The hour is still civil, and so Regina walks on foot across town, all the way to the Bed and Breakfast where Emma surely must be staying. Her feet carry her all the way up to the front desk, where she is given Emma's room number (same as before), of course, because no one in town will openly defy her.

 

Up the stairs she goes and knocks at the door, counting the seconds after. It's three seconds until she hears movement on the other side, ten until it opens to reveal Emma's befuddled face. Emma's expression hardens upon realizing who is standing before her. “Can I help you?”

 

Right at that moment, it takes a lot of willpower not to bite her lips. “Yes. I, ah, wanted to apologize. For earlier.”

 

“You mean when you called me a slut?” Emma crosses her arms. This is going well.

 

Regina can't help grit her teeth in response. “Yes.”

 

Emma sighs, averts her eyes to the ground. “Okay, look. I didn't exactly appreciate the comment. But you were also —I s houldn't have been doing that in a public space. To be honest, I'm not sure what got into me.”

 

Surprised, Regina blinks. “Well, we all get carried away sometimes.”

 

“Yeah, well, I'll be sure to be out of your hair from now on.” Emma tries for a sheepish grin, falters, puts her hand on the door. “Uh, good night?”

 

“Sure. Good night. Sleep well.”

 

* * *

 

In the morning Regina passes the diner on her way to her office, just as Emma's yellow bug pulls out of its parking lot. Regina immediately hits the brakes and rolls her window down. “Where is she going?” She demands of Ruby, who is putting up the slate sign like she's done every morning for nearly three decades.

 

She gets a stinky eye for that and ignores it. “She's leaving. Guess she's had enough of Storybrooke's charms.” The girl has the gall to raise her eyebrow at Regina, evidently challenging her. Regina grinds her teeth, but she's got more important things to do.

 

Right now, that includes revving her car around and heading out of town. She's deep in the woods when she catches up to Emma, who is heading straight for the town line that will take her out of Regina's reach. Under a sudden outburst of cold sweat, Regina steps on the gas, feeling almost like she might lose control of her car, but she easily maneuvers it to the side of the bug. A glance out the window reveals Emma looking at her with a confused and upset expression. Good. She keeps going.

 

It doesn't take long for Emma to break down and stop her car, from which she promptly jumps out. Before Regina can really register it, Emma is in her face. “What the hell are you doing?”

 

Her face feels unnaturally warm in the damp morning air. She realizes it's Emma's breath that reaches her, can see her lips moving slightly with the effort. “I — ” she says, and licks her lip as she seeks Emma's eyes again. “I don't want you to leave.”

 

Emma doesn't recoil, exactly, but steps away anyhow. Regina's face is cold again. “I told you I was just passing through.”

 

“Yes, but...”

 

At that moment, Regina has what you would call an epiphany. She knows exactly what she's going to say that will make Emma stay. “You had a baby, right? That you gave up for adoption?”

 

Now Emma recoils. Under her clothes, all her muscles tense, as if she's ready to run. As if she's run from this so many times. “How do you know that?”

 

Regina ignores that, goes right to the heart of the matter. “That baby is Henry.”

 

Something shifts in Emma. The surprise in her eyes lessens and turns into just plain suspicion. “Why are you telling me that? Regina?” That piercing stare, that challenging attitude, those belong to the Emma she knows. They are fully themselves again.

 

Regina takes a deep breath. “I just said why. I want you to stay.”

 

She thinks that at no point in her life has she felt so defenseless as right now, before Emma Swan. “Even though you could've just let me go and have Henry to yourself forever?”

 

A bellowing laugh bubbles up in her throat. She shakes her head, signaling defeat — to, finally, her own feelings, to the force of nature that is Emma. “I told you last time that he needs you. And so does everyone else. And I...,” she licks her lips, nervous. “I really, truly  _ want _ you to come back. Our lives changed after you came, and now they're not complete without you in them. Come home, Emma. Wake up. Everyone is waiting for you.”

 

The last thing she sees before the world dims around her is Emma's quivering smile.


	14. Fictorium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [fictorium](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium).

“Mom!”

 

Henry is the one to notice first, her bright and wonderful boy. He’s looming over her a second later, blocking her view of Mary Margaret’s unpainted ceiling. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to realize this isn’t an altered reality or a world inside Emma’s brain. All five senses assault Regina at once in a way they haven’t every other time the world shifted or tilted. She can smell the telltale cinnamon that follows Mary Margaret everywhere she goes, since in this town the once-revered Snow White has chosen to live as a human Snickerdoodle.

 

“Henry,” Regina reaches for him, relieved when he accepts her palm against his cheek as readily as he ever did. “Is she—”

 

“Jesus Christ,” someone groans from the other side of Regina. She knows that voice on a bone-deep level now, at every age and with ten different lives of experience behind it. “How the hell much did I have to drink?”

 

“You put us in bed together?” Regina scrambles away from Henry and her bedmate, using her elbows to leverage into a sitting position. Although her coat and heels are missing, she’s relieved to see that she’s still fully dressed. She turns to see Emma in a similar state of rumpled assessing. “Miss Swan…”

 

“You.” The word is chilling when Emma says it. Regina tries in vain to shake off the familiarity of the fantasy realms, of kisses and heartfelt confessions and fears assuaged. “You were in my head,” Emma accuses, and she’s tumbling out of the bed, her legs barely carrying her in the haste to escape Regina. “What the hell did you let her do to me?”

 

David is there then, supporting his daughter and leading her to the chair in the corner of the room, still draped with Emma’s recently-worn clothing. She’s no more disheveled than usual in a tank top and oversized pajama pants. Regina keeps her place on the bed, unsure whether to risk movement or to skip straight for a magical escape.

 

She hasn’t done anything wrong, for once. She brought their precious Savior back, didn’t she? A long shower and a few synthetic fabrics, and Emma Swan will be restored to whatever her version of former glory looks like.

 

“Emma,” Mary Margaret is the one to keep the peace, cloying as ever. It’s sure only a matter of time before she takes credit for everything Regina has just endured. “Regina brought you back. She saved you, sweetheart.”

 

“Saved me from what?” Emma snaps, before burying her head in her hands, as though trying to stave off a migraine.

 

“Magic broke your brain, Emma,” Henry leaps into explain. “Didn’t it, Mom?”

 

“Not quite,” Regina corrects, but her throat is dry. Mary Margaret hands over a glass of water, before offering the other in her hand to Emma, who waves it away. “But if you’re asking whether I trailed through the darkest recesses of your subconscious to drag you back to the land of the living then yes,  _ Emma _ . Guilty as charged.”

 

It’s the use of her first name that makes Emma’s head snap up. Whatever she’s resisting, or just unable to parse, it clearly hits her in that moment. Perhaps she was really unaware all the times she’d revealed herself to Regina, and it’s only now coming back like the contents of an interrupted dream. It would be so easy to look away, but after all she’s seen and done, Regina will be damned if she can’t do Emma the final courtesy of holding her gaze as the puzzle pieces fall into place.

 

“Magic did this to me?” Emma asks.

 

“Yes, when it felt threatened at the well, it lashed out at someone powerful. If Gold is to be believed, a lesser owner of magic would simply have died. You might just be exceptional after all. At something other than demolishing Granny’s pastry display, anyway.”

 

“But why are you here? Like this?”

 

“Speaking of location changes, wasn’t Emma in hospital when I took that potion with a nasty little kick? How long have we been unconscious?”

 

David is the one to reply, after a silent consultation with his wife. They’ve grown no less infuriating, all doe-eyed even with their pointed glances.

 

“Three days. Henry suggested we bring you both here, once Whale pointed out for the hundredth time that there was nothing medically wrong. We checked with Gold and he said keeping you physically close while you were in…there…was probably for the best.”

 

“You were holding hands,” Henry whispers, mostly to Regina but with a panicked glance at Emma. “We didn’t do that; you did it yourselves.”

 

“No doubt to protect ourselves from some dream monster,” Regina brushes off the strangeness. “Miss Swan has a vivid imagination but it’s limited to the contents of one too many Freddy Krueger movies.”

 

“Does that mean I can watch those now?” Henry sees his opportunity, but Regina is satisfied when Emma joins in the chorus of “no way” from every adult in the room.

 

“Well, my duty is done,” Regina decides, standing and slipping on the heels that have been left neatly at the foot of the bed. Her coat is hanging on the door of Emma’s half-empty wardrobe and she wraps it around her, tying the belt without pausing to do the buttons. Every second she stays here feels like standing on a landmine, and she has no intention of being around for the explosion that will occur the moment she steps off. She weighs the risks of using magic for a second, but she can feel it thrumming powerfully in her veins as it has since Emma jumpstarted her over a hat. She can manage a simple teleportation.

 

“Mom, wait,” Henry insists, and when he runs at her this time she almost forgets to brace. She’s rusty from the dream worlds, she decides, wrapping her arms around her son even as she rocks on her heels to keep her balance. He’s so real and so solid after the few dream iterations of him that Regina feels tears starting to well. She’s seen him as he was born now. Emma gave her that.

 

“I have some things to do at home.” She finds her voice after a long minute. “No more sneaking out, do you hear me? If you must be… here, Henry, then please stay safe. Storybrooke isn’t some sleepy cursed town anymore.”

 

“But how will I come see you?” Henry protests.

 

“You want to?” Regina is tentative. His trust in her is so new, so fragile, that she doesn’t dare squeeze too hard this time. “So we’re not done? I wasn’t sure if you just wanted me to help Emma.”

 

“But you did help her,” Henry points out. “And I don’t know about the other stuff right now, but that makes you a hero, Mom.”

 

Regina scoffs, but his words touch a dusty chamber of her heart that she thought closed off a long time ago. Another moment of this and she’ll embarrass herself in front of these damn Charmings. Regina will endure almost anything for her boy, but not that when she can still avoid it.

 

“Call me,” Regina suggests. “I’m sure Emma or David will bring you over if you want to see me. I’ll cook anything you want, just let me know when. And Henry?”

 

“Yeah?” He’s retreating towards Emma from the moment Regina releases him from the hug. She grits her teeth and tries to cling on to the memory that in her subconscious, at least, Emma understands the value of sharing. Understands, fundamentally, that Henry and Regina belong to each other and always will. After these past days, of losing the mother that made her so bad at love and yet so badly in need of it, Regina sees now that the choice is hers.

 

She can love Henry in good ways or in bad, in honesty or in lies. She can offer him the ghost of a life that doesn’t move or change, or she can protect him from all the fears she carries in her heart, and the ones that Emma has shown her, too. There’s no erasing Emma, no denying that Henry loves her too and wants her in his life. Though everything around that is difficult and maddening—not least the continuing annoyance of a life that includes Snow—Regina sees now that she can’t change those simple facts. More than that, some fight has gone from her; whatever fire once raged gut feels weaker now. It’s less that she can’t change the fact of Emma, and more simply that she won’t.

 

“I love you,” she reminds him. And with one last glance towards Emma and her questioning stare, Regina waves her hand and lets the purple smoke take her away.

 

* * *

 

The day passes slowly and the night even more so. Regina catches fragmented hours of sleep but rises before the dawn. Cleaning and reorganizing the already spotless house fills the time, and she’s just short of aching by the time she steps into a shower and washes the smell of bleach and polish from her skin.

 

She’s surveying the contents of the fridge with a disinterested frown when the doorbell rings. Still barefoot she jogs across the foyer, feet slapping lightly against the marble as she goes to greet her son. He was supposed to call first, but Regina can’t get too mad at him slipping away if it means he comes to see her. She will have to revisit the idea of protective magic on him, with or without the Charmings’ knowledge.

 

“Hen—” His name dies on her lips as she opens the door to Emma Swan instead.

 

“Can I come in?” Emma blurts, hands shoved in those impossibly tight pockets of a pair of blue jeans, head barely lifted to acknowledge Regina’s presence on the porch. “See? It’s not that hard to ask before waltzing in.”

 

There it is. The hint of a challenge, and Emma meets Regina’s eye to make sure the cheap shot lands.

 

“Coma patients being so easy to wake,” Regina sighs. “I did it for your own good. If you’ve come to complain, I suggest you take it up with Rumple instead. His potion, his advice. I only took it to make Henry happy.”

 

“He is,” Emma admits, as Regina steps aside and waves her vaguely towards the sitting room. “I… You look pretty casual there, Madam Mayor.” Regina looks down at her silk camisole and black yoga pants. Is she really expected to dress for company in a town where no one is likely to ever call on her?

 

“Not exactly my job title these days,” Regina reminds her. “What are you doing here, Miss Swan?” There’s more edge than she intended, but Regina finds the house carries echoes of all that’s happened since the curse broke, and that kind of darkness she’d much rather face alone. If it means she understands the feeling of violation Emma is no doubt experiencing right now, well what does that matter?

 

“You called me Emma, before.” Emma takes up position behind the couch, using it as a completely ineffective barrier. “You’ve seen things that nobody else knows about me. Hell, you’ve even seen my dumbest dreams. I bet you had a real good laugh about my Legally Blonde fantasy shit.”

 

Regina holds her tongue. There’s more to this, and she’s so tired of fighting everyone, every day. Let Emma keep digging, because Regina has seen enough to know that there’s far more below the surface than she ever gave credit for before.

 

“I guess I just wanted you to know I couldn’t control it,” Emma continues, hands gripping the fabric of the couch as though it will keep her standing. “So anything you saw is down to the magic. Especially all the, uh, stuff.”

 

“Stuff?” Regina repeats, feigning confusion as masterfully as she ever has. It seems tonight will require a command performance from the one-time Evil Queen.

 

“Of course you’re going to make me say it,” Emma groans. “The stuff. With the kissing, or whatever. Being married. I don’t want you walking around telling everyone—”

 

Regina interrupts with a soft laugh that she doesn’t intend at all. “Tell?” She gasps. “Who would listen? I’m hated here, Emma. Telling tales about the magic-tinted dreams of the Savior buys me nothing. Unless you think I was planning on having your mom over for tea? We can discuss your kissing technique right after we rehash how she killed my mother. Won’t that be cosy?”

 

“Regina…”

 

“What?” She snaps back. “I’ve had more than enough of this. I said I would do anything for Henry, and that is all I did. You don’t have to come here and wring your hands over a few imagined fumbles. You’re hardly the first person to try and take advantage when I’m trapped.”

 

Emma’s mouth falls open. Whichever chord Regina just struck, it’s a deep one. She feels a little woozy herself at having said such a thing out loud. Has the potion bound them in some way? Forced some kind of emotional honesty that’s neither wanted nor earned? She’ll kill Rumple just as soon as she can get her hands on him. No more tiptoeing around the Dark One.

 

“I’m, I’m not like that,” Emma stammers.

 

“Not like some prison guard? Or your grandfather? No, I don’t suppose you are,” Regina muses, trying frantically to collect herself before Emma notices she’s rattled. “It wasn’t some ordeal. Not really.”

 

“Yeah, right.” Emma snorts, but she’s moving around the couch now, approaching Regina with tentative steps. “But what you did for me each time, that wasn’t just a favor to your son. You could have been cruel most of the time and still pulled me out. Apart from how you’re maybe the meanest tutor I ever saw, you chose being kind. I’m not being bitchy, but that’s not exactly your M.O.”

 

“And yet, it sounds a little bitchy. If we must rehash this, will you at least take a drink?” Regina moves towards the cabinet in the corner. This is no time for cider.

 

“Hard stuff?” Emma nods in approval. “Can’t feel much more hungover than I did earlier, right?”

 

“If you want to know about after effects, you’ll have to speak to the imp,” Regina cautions as she hands the drink over. “Whatever you imagined, I don’t actually do research for fun.”

 

“Sure you do,” Emma indicates, waving to the book-lined shelves that cover most of the room. “What you forget is that the kid talks about you. Your nerdery has been exposed, well and truly.”

 

“Using our son for intel?” Regina levels the accusation, but it’s only on seeing Emma’s stunned expression that she realizes what she’s done. “ _ My _ son. Henry is not a spy for you.”

 

“It wasn’t spying,” Emma corrects, downing her drink and rolling the glass awkwardly between her palms. “But anything good I conjured up for you, or my messed up magic brain did I guess, that’s all from what the kid says about you. I know you think he’s mad at you, but despite everything he still has all these good memories. I think…maybe we rushed right past that in trying to take him away from you.”

 

“Did you realize I’m a good mother before or after he started sneaking around with dynamite?” Regina can’t resist teasing. “Not as easy as it looks, is it?”

 

“Hell no,” Emma admits. “But I guess if one good thing came out of my coma situation it’s…” She trails off, stubborn and embarrassed and digging the toe of her scraped-up boots into Regina’s spotless floors.

 

“It’s what?” Regina didn’t mean to ask so gently, but she doesn’t feel much like snapping for some reason.

 

“It’s realizing that for some insane reason—and seriously, I have no clue why—we make a pretty good team. Maybe that’s the way to go for Henry. Going forward, I mean.”

 

“A good team?” Regina repeats incredulously. “Miss Swan, I fear the effects of such strong magic have addled your brain more than we realized. I really think you ought to be going.”

 

“Regina—”

 

“You can show yourself out.” Regina returns to the Scotch decanter and pours herself another generous splash. She hates that the chink of glass against glass gives away how her hands are shaking. “Goodnight, Miss Swan,” she adds, when Emma refuses to move. A moment later there are footsteps, the sound of the door opening and closing, first the living room and then the front door. That one closes with a bang.

 

Regina is alone, again, and for once that’s exactly what she wants to be.

 

* * *

 

The days pass in a blur of invented projects to keep her busy, two separate visits from Henry where she gets to feed him up a little and if he mentions how Emma is doing as he eats, well, Regina won’t be rude enough to tell him to change the subject. The town is starting to rebuild and regroup in the wake of the latest threats, and Regina feels something like the old, boring peace start to creep back in. She certainly recognizes the boredom, even worse for not having the office of Mayor to fill her increasingly lonely days.

 

But for her sleep habits, she could almost assume nothing has changed. She closes her eyes each night, having exhausted herself on every menial task possible. If she weren’t so averse to poisons and controlled actions, she might have been tempted to slip a few herbs into a late night glass of milk.

 

That, at least, might put paid to the dreams. After all that time in Emma’s subconscious, Regina is both mortified and angered to find the experience has altered her own dream world. Where she previously only dreamed of confrontation and other anxieties, now her resting hours are a technicolor replay of every moment of tenderness she shared with Emma in those fantasy worlds.

 

Worse that that? She’s conjuring up new scenarios nightly, everything from chaste kisses that taste of cocoa, to elaborate weddings, to clashes between them that turn into something much more passionate. Something wild enough to have Regina wake with a start, clutching at the sheets and sure that any second she’ll feel Emma’s mouth or fingers against her skin.

 

The third night that she dreams of a naked Emma in her bed, with insistent touches and blonde curls falling around them as they move together, Regina wakes with a start again. This time it’s not the passion of the dream that wakes her, but the thundering of a fist against the door downstairs. Panicked that something has happened to Henry, Regina stumbles down the stairs fast enough to risk breaking her neck, not bothering to grab a robe to put over the black negligee she wore to bed.

 

She throws the door open, finally registering the heavy rain that’s been background noise since she awoke. Regina supposes she should be surprised, but so little shocks her now in this post-curse, post-Emma-Swan world. Because Emma Swan is the unsurprising visitor in the dead of night, dripping with rainwater and as agitated as Regina has ever seen her.

 

“You have to stop,” Emma pleads. “Regina, please. You’re killing me.”

 

“Stop what?” Regina demands. “Sleeping peacefully in my own home? Bothering no one? You have some nerve, Miss Swan.”

 

“Call me Emma, please,” she insists. “And stop dreaming…what you’re dreaming. Unless you want to do that for real. But I can’t take it, night after night.”

 

“You can see what I’m dreaming?” Regina is horrified, but the residual arousal coursing through her system spikes, confirming it wasn’t exactly dissuaded by Emma’s sudden appearance in the first place. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

 

“It’s happening,” Emma gasps. “Regina, please…”

 

Regina considers the woman in front of her, feels the thrum of her own excitement coursing through her veins, and in that instant she feels the hate and the hundred good reasons why not start to crumble and fall away. She doesn’t have to be alone. She doesn’t have to give up her son in order to share him. She doesn’t have to be the only one cast aside, the only one with no one on her side.

  
For better or worse, taking that potion and chasing Emma through altered realities has changed something. Regina didn’t realize just how much. She considers one moment longer, enjoying the desperate hope on Emma’s face just a little more than anyone should. Then Regina takes a step towards Emma, reaching for her wet leather jacket and pulling her inside the house.


	15. Alinandalion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by [alinaandalion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alinaandalion/pseuds/alinaandalion).

The days still pass slowly.  Less slowly than before, certainly, now that Emma has taken to coming to Regina late in the night with soft eyes and an insistent mouth that burns against Regina’s skin.  But she doesn’t stay, not after Regina’s casual suggestion that even the idiot Charmings might get suspicious if Emma is missing from her bed morning after morning, and the mornings are long and fade into longer afternoons until Emma is back and it begins again.

 

Regina hates living in these small spaces, hates the long monotony broken only by this odd affair with Emma or short visits from Henry where he alternates between the unsureness and anxiety that have dogged him for the past year and a comfort informed by ten years of being mother and son.  Every small taste leaves her hungrier and hungrier and the emptiness that yawns in front of her remaining life just leaves her aching.

 

But she’ll take what she can get.  And when she opens the door one evening to find Henry and Emma waiting on her doorstep, she finds herself asking Emma inside.

 

Emma looks surprised but she says, “Sure,” and follows Henry in.

 

Regina watches the two of them kick off their shoes and tries to push down this warm, settled feeling that rises in her chest.  It’s just dinner, but then she catches sight of the overnight bag in Henry’s hand, and she almost doesn’t dare to ask because she doesn’t think she can bear to hear a refusal but he’s her son, her son, and--

 

“Are you staying tonight, Henry?” she says quietly, mostly managing to keep the desperate hopefulness out of her voice.

 

“Henry and I thought it might be a good idea if he started staying over some,” Emma says as she rests a hand on Henry’s shoulder.  “If that’s okay with you?”

 

Regina breathes in quickly and nods, saying, “Of course.  Any time you want, Henry.”

 

Henry grins then, and she walks to him, pulling him into a gentle hug.  He relaxes in her arms, easy as when he was younger and she was his whole world, and she blinks back tears, aware that Emma is watching them.

 

“Go put your things in your room, sweetheart, and I’ll find something for us to eat,” Regina says as she lets him go.

 

Henry looks from her to Emma then back and asks, “Can Emma stay, Mom?  We can just get a pizza or something.”

 

Regina hesitates, still jealous, still longing to hold all of her time with Henry close to her chest and not share with anyone, but Emma’s eyes are soft when Regina looks at her, and things are changing.  They’re not enemies anymore, and maybe this is what moving forward looks like.  

 

“If that’s what you want, Henry,” Regina says, smiling at him.

 

“Awesome!”  He bounces on his toes a little and turns to look at Emma.  “I’ll be right back.”

 

He takes off for the stairs, leaving Regina and Emma to stare at each other.  Emma ducks her head and shoves her hands into her pockets, rocking back on her heels.  But since she’s just in her socks, Emma’s right foot slips on the slick floor, and she stumbles back, nearly falling except that Regina grabs her by the arms and steadies her.

 

“Thanks,” Emma mumbles as Regina steps back and lets her go.

 

Regina shrugs and says, “I couldn’t let you crack your head open, now, could I?”

 

Emma rolls her eyes as she says, “You don’t have to keep pretending that you hate me, Regina.”

 

“I never said that I stopped,” Regina replies, voice sharp as she heads for the kitchen to hunt down the take-out menu for the pizza place.

 

“Whatever, Regina,” Emma says, following after her.  “You like me at least a little bit.”

 

She says it with such ease that it’s simultaneously irritating and endearing, like almost everything about Emma.  Regina can feel a fond smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and she focuses on hunting down that menu in one of the kitchen drawers rather than responding.

 

Henry comes in, then, and he slides up next to Regina, pulling the menu from her hands with a casual, “Thanks, Mom,” before taking it over to the kitchen island to pore over it with Emma.

 

Regina hangs back and watches them as they stare down at the menu.  Henry steals a glance at Regina, and he gives her a sly smile that draws her closer.

 

“Can we get our Friday usual?” Henry asks.

 

“What’s that?” Emma says before Regina can answer.

 

Regina walks over to them and tugs the menu from Emma, pointing out the items as she says, “We normally get a large with everything on it and a medium cheese.  Sometimes, we get the hot wings, too.”

 

“What about a salad?” Emma asks.

 

“Not usually, but we can if you want,” Regina replies with a shrug.  “We should probably make the cheese a large.  Unless you want something else?”

 

“Um, no, just pizza and wings sounds good,” Emma says, though she looks a little confused.  

 

Henry giggles a little and leans into Regina’s side.  “I told you that Mom doesn’t eat healthy all the time.”

 

“Look, she’s the one who makes fun of my eating habits,” Emma protests as Regina turns to look for the telephone.

 

“Just because I don’t believe in a steady diet of hamburgers, grilled cheese, and fries, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy them,” Regina says with a small laugh.  

 

“Okay,” Emma says slowly, still frowning, and Regina presses her lips together to hold back more laughter.

 

“Come on, Emma, let’s go play some  _ Mario Kart _ ,” Henry says, grabbing Emma’s hand and tugging on it.  

 

“What about Regina?” Emma asks as she lets him lead her away.

 

Regina starts dialing the number for the pizza place as she listens to Henry say, “Don’t worry, she’ll be here in a minute and then she’ll kick your butt at this game.”

 

“Yeah right, kid,” Emma replies, and Regina smiles.

  
  
  


* * *

 

 

“I can’t believe you couldn’t even let me win one,” Emma grumbles as she slouches further down on the couch.

 

“Are you never going to let this go?” Regina asks, settling down beside her.  

 

“It’s only been an hour.  I’ve still got some more complaining time left,” Emma says. She grins and nudges Regina’s knee with her own.  “At least I know now where the kid got his ridiculous competitive streak.”

 

“And you’re not competitive at all?” Regina says, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine,” Emma replies as she rolls her eyes.  “Still, this was fun.  I’m glad you let me stay.”

 

Regina stiffens a little.  “Well, Henry wanted you here.  It’s not like I’m sitting here dreaming of playing ‘happy family’ with you.”

 

“Right,” Emma mutters.  She huffs and gets to her feet.  “I guess I”d better go.”

 

Regina scoots forward on the couch and grabs Emma’s hand without thinking.  “Wait.”

 

“What?” Emma asks, voice tired.

 

Regina looks down at their joined hands and it still doesn’t really make sense, this pull Emma has for her, how this night has been the best she’s had in so long.  But she’s tired, too; tired of losing, tired of letting good things slip from her grasp.

 

“Stay,” Regina murmurs.

 

Emma stills and asks, “For how long?”

 

Regina breathes in and in and finally lets it out as she says, “I don’t know.  But I don’t want you to go.  Not yet.”

 

“Okay,” Emma whispers and she pulls Regina up to her feet, steadies her with hands on her hips.  “Okay.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

Later that night, Regina feels Emma slipping out from under the sheets beside her.  Regina turns and lays her hand on Emma’s wrist, thumb rubbing over her pulsepoint.  

 

“Stay,” Regina murmurs, drowsy and warm and full of a longing that she still can’t explain.

 

“What about keeping this a secret?” Emma asks quietly even as she moves closer to Regina.

 

“You can leave before Henry gets up,” Regina says.  “But stay until then?”

 

Emma doesn’t respond right away and Regina thinks that she might have overstepped, misunderstood exactly what they’re doing here, but then Emma brushes her lips against Regina’s shoulder and tucks her head under Regina’s chin.

  
  


* * *

 

 

She wakes up to Emma’s elbow digging into her ribs and Emma whimpering in her sleep.  Regina shoves Emma away and rubs at her eyes when that seems to be enough to wake Emma up.

 

Emma groans and mumbles, “Sorry, bad dream.”

 

And even though their link has weakened over time, their dreams are still connected, and Regina thinks over the flashes she can remember.  A forest, wolves, a sneering Snow with bloodstained hands, and she understands then.

 

“The one from the Enchanted Forest.  With your mother,” Regina says quietly as she sits up.

 

“Yeah,” Emma says, sighing.  “I don’t know why I’m dreaming about it.  I thought all of that was over.”

 

“It didn’t end the same way as the others, though,” Regina replies.  She licks her lips and continues, “I didn’t--I failed you in that one.”

 

“You did your best,” Emma says.  She turns on the lamp and settles beside Regina, pulling her legs up to her chest.  “Some of that stuff, well--it doesn’t just go away, you know?  That doesn’t mean it’s your fault.  It’s just, I don’t know, part of the shit I have to work through.”

 

“Do you think there could be another reason that you’re still dreaming about it?” Regina asks as she curls her fingers around the sheet to keep from reaching out and touching Emma.  

 

“Like what?” Emma asks with a shrug of her shoulders.  “I don’t think it has anything to do with what happened while I was in that magical coma or whatever.  Is that what you’re thinking?”

 

“Why else would you still be dreaming about it?” Regina says.  “Maybe I missed something and--”

 

“And what?” Emma cuts in.  “There’s still a piece of me missing?  Regina, I’m right here and I’m fine.  It was just a dream.”

 

Regina shakes her head.  “You told me right before you disappeared that time that you just wanted to belong.  I...I missed that.”

 

Emma sighs and shifts so she’s sitting on her knees in front of Regina, hands coming up to rest on Regina’s thighs.  “Regina, you brought me back home.  Over and over, you fought for me in there.  I wanted to belong to something, to someone, long before I ever came to Storybrooke.  It’s not something that’s just going to go away.  It was just a nightmare.”

 

“But you still feel that way?” Regina presses.  “That you don’t belong?”

 

“Not as much,” Emma says quietly.  She smiles as she looks at Regina.  “Not right now.”

 

Regina’s breath catches in her throat and she covers Emma’s hands with her own.  Emma closes her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath.  Regina moves her hands up Emma’s arms to rest on her elbows, tugging gently once, and Emma shifts forward into Regina, head resting over Regina’s heart as Regina lets herself fall back to the mattress.

 

“I’m here,” Regina murmurs as she wraps her arms tight around Emma.  “Stay.”

 

She can feel the warmth of Emma’s breath against her collarbone and then the gentle press of Emma’s lips to the hollow of her throat.  Regina lets her eyes flutter closed as she holds Emma close.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end, folks! Thank you to all of you for reading through, and thank you to all the tremendously talented writers in fandom who joined us in putting this together and stuck through until the end. It's been a hell of a ride. <3


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